Auctioning of announcements

ABSTRACT

An announcement distributor distributes, or auctions an opportunity to distribute, an announcement to an announcement recipient such as a consumer, issuer, merchant, or acquirer within a payment processing system. The announcement when there has been a satisfaction of an announcement condition, such as the consumer being determined to be located within a predetermined spatial zone. The content of the announcement may, in turn, facilitate a subsequent cashless transaction for resources of merchants. Implementations describe various permutations of the content of the announcement, the announcement condition, and the announcement recipient.

CROSS NOTING

This is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, filedon ______, titled “Targeting Merchant Announcements Triggered byConsumer Activity Relative to a Surrogate Merchant”, as Attorney DocketNo. P-14245US (930676.00113), which is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. ______, filed on ______, titled “Receipt ofCommunications From Announcement Recipients of Consumer Data”, asAttorney Docket No. P-14247US (930676.00115), which is a continuation ofU.S. patent application Ser. No. ______, filed on ______, titled“Receiving An Announcement Triggered By Location Data”, as AttorneyDocket No. P-14248US (930676.00116), which is a continuation of U.S.patent application Ser. No. ______, filed on ______, titled “Bidding ToReceive Data After A Consumer Is In A Zone”, as Attorney Docket No.P-14249US (930676.00117), which is a continuation of U.S. patentapplication Ser. No. ______, filed on ______, titled “Location BasedProcessing Of Announcements For Delivery To An Announcement Recipient”,as Attorney Docket No. P-14251US (930676.00155), each of the foregoingbeing incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD

Implementations generally relate to communicating information tofacilitate a transaction, and more particularly, to announcingtransaction information to an announcement recipient after anannouncement condition has been satisfied in order to facilitate asubsequent transaction.

BACKGROUND

Merchants spend a considerable amount of their investment dollars inmarketing their resources to consumers. Often these marketing effortsare blind to the specific needs or preferences of the consumers theytarget, making them inefficient in influencing or predicting consumerpurchasing decisions. Moreover, prediction of potential consumerpurchasing decisions is further complicated when consumers makepurchases for other consumers, such as gifts, or when consumers areinfluenced by other consumer's recommendations. Finally, a merchant'smarketing efforts may not be executed at a time when a targeted consumeris susceptible to make a purchase.

On the other hand, many consumers now carry a portable consumer devicecapable of sending and receiving information, such as cellulartelephones. Therefore, consumers are gaining access to more informationas they make purchasing decisions. For example, a consumer may access asearch engine with a browser executing on a World Wide Web enabledcellular telephone to search for specified resources that may be sold bymerchants. However, the information the consumer receives may not bewell directed to the needs or preferences of the consumer.

Accordingly, it would be an advance in the art of commerce to providetimely and well tailored communications to facilitate subsequenttransactions.

SUMMARY

In one implementation, an announcement opportunity to have anannouncement sent to an announcement recipient is auctioned to auctionparticipants. The auction participants bid to receive the announcementwhen at least one specified condition occurs, including the presence ofa consumer within a zone. The auction participant receives anotification when their bid to receive the announcement is a winningbid. After the at least one specified condition occurs, the winningauction participant, who is deemed to be the announcement recipient,then receives the announcement.

In another implementation, announcement opportunities to communicatewith at least one consumer when a specified condition occurs areauctioned to a plurality of auction participants. The specifiedcondition includes the presence of the consumer in a zone and at leastone auction participant having a winning bid. After the specifiedcondition occurs, a communication to the consumer from the auctionparticipant having the winning bid is facilitated or enabled.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

Implementations will become more apparent from the detailed descriptionset forth below when taken in conjunction with the drawings, in whichlike elements bear like reference numerals.

FIG. 1 depicts a block diagram illustrating an exemplary environment inwhich an announcement recipient receives an announcement;

FIG. 2 depicts a block diagram illustrating an exemplary paymentprocessing system that can be operated in the environment of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 depicts a flowchart of an exemplary method, that can be performedin the environment of FIG. 1, for an announcement distributor to providethe announcement to the announcement recipient;

FIG. 4 continues the flowchart in FIG. 3, wherein the announcementdistributor auctions the announcement to the announcement recipient;

FIG. 5 depicts a flowchart of an exemplary method, that can be performedin the environment of FIG. 1, for notifying a member consumer in aconsumer group of purchases from any of a plurality of the merchantsthat are made by any other member consumer in the consumer group;

FIG. 6 continues the flowchart in FIG. 5, wherein the announcement istriggered by one of the member consumers engaging in a transaction;

FIG. 7 continues the flowchart in FIG. 5, wherein the announcement istriggered by the presence of one of the member consumers in a zone; and

FIG. 8 depicts a block diagram of yet another exemplary paymentprocessing system that can be operated in the environment of FIG. 1.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

A consumer and a merchant engage in a transaction for the purchase of aresource, such as a good and/or a service. The transaction or “purchase”can be a sale, a lease, a rental, an assignment, and/or a license, wheresome form of currency (e.g., money, “points” in a loyalty program,minutes for cellular telephony air time usage) is given the consumer tothe merchant to purchase the resource. Alternatively, the transactionmay also be gratuitous, such as a donation to a charitable organization,where the consumer is the donor and the charitable organization is themerchant receiving the donation. The consumer may be a person, anentity, or a group of persons or entities. The merchant may be, forexample, a retailer, a wholesaler, a reseller, a manufacturer, a broker,a distributor, a provider, a charitable organization, or any entity inthe distribution chain of resources. In a business-to-businessenvironment, a first merchant may engaged in the transaction with theconsumer that is a second merchant, such as a small business to whom thefirst merchant is a supplier of resources.

Methods, apparatus, systems, and transformations of particular articlesto different states or things are disclosed, wherein a tailoredannouncement is timely sent to entities, such as consumers or merchants,in a chain of commerce to facilitate a subsequent transaction. Theannouncement may include information, for example, such as: a purchaseprice of a resource purchased in the past; a real-time location of theconsumer, an indication of a number of times that the consumer has beenin a spatial zone over a window of time; a transaction history of atargeted consumer; a sequential shopping pattern of multiple consumers;a coupon of a merchant; a report on past announcements sent toannouncement recipients; or a combination of the forgoing.

Implementations for disseminating an announcement include variouspermutations of: variations on the content of the announcement,variations on an announcement condition that triggers the sending of theannouncement, and variations on an announcement recipient receiving theannouncement. For example, in one such implementation, the announcementis sent informing a merchant that a consumer with a particularpurchasing history, is located within a spatial zone of interest to thatmerchant. In another such implementation, the announcement is notdirectly sent to the announcement recipient, but is auctioned off tobidders each submitting a bid for the right to be send theirannouncement to the announcement recipient. In yet another suchimplementation, the consumer requests and receives the announcement thatindicates characteristics of past transactions of a specified merchant.In yet a further implementation, a set of resources of interest to agroup of consumers is specified, the set is modified as the consumerswithin the group make purchases of the resources in the set, and theconsumers in the group receive the announcement containing the modifiedset of resources.

Referring to FIG. 1, a block diagram illustrates an exemplaryenvironment in which an announcement recipient receives an announcementby an announcement system 100. The announcement system 100 includes atleast one consumer (c) 102 (e.g., the consumer) such as consumer (1) 102through consumer (C) 102, where C can be up to and greater than an eightdigit integer; at least one merchant (m) 104 (e.g., the merchant) suchas merchant (1) 104 through merchant (M) 104, where M can be up to andgreater than an eight digit integer; and at least one host (h) 106 suchas host (1) 106 through host (H) 106, where H can be up to and greaterthan an eight digit integer (collectively “users”). The host (h) 106 maybe an entity that utilizes a computer to receive and transmit data,store data, or execute algorithms (e.g., software), such as to comparethe received data to the stored data. For example, the host (h) 106 mayutilize a computer to execute an algorithm to determine if theannouncement condition has been satisfied and to facilitate the transfer(e.g., transmission or broadcasting) of the announcement to theannouncement recipient, such as the consumer (c) 102 or the merchant (m)104.

The announcement system 100 may have at least one database DB 110. Asappreciated by those skilled in the art, the DB 110 or componentsthereof may be any combination of databases, or the components thereof,in a single location or in multiple locations. Data stored in the DB 110may be structured by a database model, such as a relational model or ahierarchical model, where the model may govern how the data stored inthe DB 110 may be accessed. For example, query languages can be used toquery the data stored in the DB 110 to locate records, or portionsthereof, that are relevant to the query. DB 110 may include any of avariety of security features such as: access codes, firewalls,compression, decompression, encryption, de-encryption, or the like.

The data stored in the DB 110 may include information about the consumer(c) 102, the merchant (m) 104, the host (h) 106, or others, for example.This stored data may include: transaction information about transactionsbetween the consumer (c) 102 and the merchant (m) 104; corporaterecords; information received from a user of announcement system 100,such as through a profile created by the user; or information purchasedfrom external sources who supply such information. To illustrate, thetransaction information may include trends in a transaction history ofan account issued to the consumer (c) 102 by an issuer. The corporaterecords may include a location of the merchant (m) 104. A user profileof the merchant (m) 104 may include a merchant category of the merchant(m) 104, or a merchant identifier of the merchant (m) 104. Theinformation purchased from an external source may include a Fair IsaacCorporation (FICO) score of the consumer (c) 102.

In one implementation, an inventory management system (IMS) of themerchant (m) 104 is connected to the announcement system 100 such thatdata about the resources of merchant (m) 104 in the IMS may flow to theDB 110. The merchant (m) 104 may use the IMS to track the flow ofresources within the inventory of the merchant (m) 104. The IMS mayinclude a computer software program capable of accessing a merchantdatabase containing data about the resources within the inventory of themerchant (m) 104. The IMS may have a graphical user interface (“GUI”)enabling the merchant (m) 104 to enter, delete, and analyze the dataabout the resources. The computer software program within the IMS mayprovide the capability of associating a description with an inventoryitem within the inventory of the merchant (m) 104, such as a categoryfor the inventory item. The IMS may automatically transmit the dataabout the resources of the merchant (m) 104 to the DB 110 according to apre-selected workflow.

Each user of announcement system 100 may be communicatively connectedvia a network Net 108 through a network device such as Net (1) 108through Net (N) 810, where N can be up to and greater than an eightdigit integer. Each Net (n) 108 may represent any of a variety ofsuitable means for exchanging data, such as: an Internet, an intranet,an extranet, a wide area network (WAN), a local area network (LAN), avirtual private network, a satellite communications network, anAutomatic Teller Machine (ATM) network, an interactive televisionnetwork, or any combination of the forgoing. Net (n) 108 may containeither or both wired and wireless connections for the transmission ofsignals including electrical, magnetic, and a combination thereof.Examples of such connections are known in the art and include: radiofrequency connections, optical connections, etc, To illustrate, theconnection for the transmission of signals may be a telephone link, aDigital Subscriber Line, or cable link. Moreover, Net (n) 108 mayutilize any of a variety of communication protocols, such asTransmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol (TCP/IP), for example.

Each Net (n) 108 may connect one or more users. For example, theconsumer (c) 102 may be connected to the host (h) 106 via Net (n) 108, asatellite communication network, while the merchant (m) 104 may beconnected to the host (h) 106 via Net (2) 108, an Internet communicationnetwork. Data flows between users of the announcement system 100 throughtheir respective connections to one or more network devices (e.g., Net(n) 108)) that are networked within the network Net 108 in theannouncement system 100.

There may be multiple nodes within the network Net 108, each of whichmay conduct some level of processing on the data transmitted within theannouncement system 100. For example, a node within the Net (n) 108 maybe a bank connecting the merchant (m) 104 to the host (h) 106. The bank,or other nodes, may also be one of the users of the announcement system100.

The users of the announcement system 100 may communicate with oneanother through Net 108 and/or via communication channels. For example,consumer (c) 102 may communicate with: merchant (m) 104 via a channel116; or host (h) 106 via channel 112, Net (n) 108, and a channel 118.Each communication channel in FIG. 1 is shown as a double arrowrepresenting a plurality of signal and bidirectional communicationchannels. For example, the merchant (m) 104 may transmit data to the Net(1) 108 via channel 114 and receive data back from Net (2) 108 viachannel 114. Similarly, consumer (1) 102 may communicate with consumer(2) 102 via a communication paths involving channel 112 and Net (n) 108.

Users of the announcement system 100 may interact with one another orreceive data about one another within the announcement system 100 usingany of a variety of communication devices. The communication device mayhave a processing unit operatively connected to a display and memorysuch as Random Access Memory (“RAM”) and/or Read-Only Memory (“ROM”).The communication device may be combination of hardware and softwarethat enables an input device such as a keyboard, a mouse, a stylus andtouch screen, or the like.

Use of the announcement system 100 by consumer (c) 102 may include theuse of a portable consumer device (PCD). The PCD may be a communicationdevice, or may be used in conjunction with, or as part of, thecommunication device. Examples of the PCD include any of: a card (e.g.,bank card, payment card, financial card, credit card, charge card, debitcard, gift card, bus pass, smart card, access card, security card,healthcare card, or telephone card), a tag, a wristwatch, a key ring, afob (e.g., SPEEDPASS® commercially available from ExxonMobilCorporation), a pager, a cellular telephone, a personal digitalassistant, a digital audio player, a computer (e.g., laptop computer), aset-top box, a portable workstation, a minicomputer, or a combinationthereof. The PCD may have near field or far field communicationcapabilities (e.g., satellite communication or communication to cellsites of a cellular network) for telephony or data transfer such ascommunication with a global positioning system (GPS). The PCD maysupport a number of services such as Short Message Service (SMS) fortext messaging and Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) for transfer ofphotographs and videos, electronic mail (e-mail) access.

The PCD may include a computer readable medium. The computer readablemedium, such as a magnetic stripe or a memory of a chip or a chipset,may include a volatile, a non-volatile, a read only, or a programmablememory that stores data, such as an account identifier, a consumeridentifier, and/or an expiration date. The computer readable medium mayincluding executable instructions that, when executed by a computer, thecomputer will perform a method. Examples of the PCD with memory andexecutable instructions include: a smart card, a personal digitalassistant, a digital audio player, a cellular telephone, a personalcomputer, or a combination thereof. To illustrate, the PCD may be afinancial card that can be used by a consumer to conduct a contactlesstransaction with a merchant, where the financial card includes amicroprocessor, a programmable memory, and a transponder (e.g.,transmitter or receiver). The financial card can have near fieldcommunication capabilities, such as by one or more radio frequencycommunications such as are used in a “Blue Tooth” communication wirelessprotocol for exchanging data over short distances from fixed and mobiledevices, thereby creating personal area networks (PANs).

Similarly, the merchant (m) 104 may interact with either the host (h)106 or the consumer (c) 102 via a communication device, such as a Pointof Interaction. A Point of Interaction (POI) can be a physical orvirtual communication vehicle that provides the opportunity, through anychannel (112, 114, 116, 118) to engage with the consumer (c) 102 or thehost (h) 106 for the purposes of providing content, messaging or othercommunication, related directly or indirectly to the facilitation orexecution of a transaction between the merchant (m) 104 and the consumer(c) 102. Examples of the POI include: a physical or virtual Point ofService (POS) terminal, the PCD of the consumer (c) 102, a portabledigital assistant, a cellular telephone, paper mail, e-mail, an Internetwebsite rendered via a browser executing on computing device, or acombination of the forgoing.

The PCD may interface with the POI using a mechanism including anysuitable electrical, magnetic, or optical interfacing system such as acontactless system using radio frequency, a magnetic field recognitionsystem, or a contact system such as a magnetic stripe reader. Toillustrate, the POI may have a magnetic stripe reader that makes contactwith the magnetic stripe of a healthcare card (e.g., Flexible SavingsAccount card) of the consumer (c) 102. As such, data encoded in themagnetic stripe on the healthcare card of consumer (c) 102 read andpassed via channel 116 to the POI at merchant (m) 104. These data caninclude an account identifier of a healthcare account. The POI can thenform a transmission including the account identifier for delivery to thehost (h) 106 via channels 114, through Net (n) 108, and channel 118. Inanother example, the POI may be the PCD of the consumer (c) 102, such asthe cellular telephone of the consumer (c) 102, where the merchant (m)104, or an agent thereof, receives the account identifier of theconsumer (c) 102 via a webpage of an interactive website rendered by abrowser executing on a World Wide Web (Web) enabled PCD.

In some implementations, the announcement system 100 can include, or beincluded within, a payment processing system that includes a pluralityof financial institutions (e.g., banks, credit unions, savings and loaninstitutions, brokerages, etc.) and at least one transaction handler,wherein users of the announcement system include: the transactionhandler, the financial institutions, the consumer (c) 102, and themerchant (m) 104. Examples of payment processing systems includeVisaNet® network, the American Express® network and the Veriphone®network. In some implementations, the financial institution and/or thetransaction handler may provide at least some of the functions of thehost (h) 106.

An Exemplary Payment Processing System

A payment processing system facilitates the processing of cashlesstransactions conducted through the use of an account such as a checkingaccount, a line of credit, or a loyalty account wherein points areredeemed (e.g., 50 reward points in a loyalty program are equal to$20(US) toward a purchase). Other examples of the accounts include:debit, revolving credit, charge, stored-value, prepaid (e.g., reloadableaccount, Flexible Spending Account, Healthcare Savings Account), gift,commercial, corporate, government, or a combination thereof. An issuer(e.g., one of the financial institutions in the payment processingsystem) may issue the account to the consumer (c) 102.

An exemplary payment processing system 200 is depicted in FIG. 2. Thepayment processing system 200 includes at least one issuer (i) 202(e.g., the issuer) such as issuer (1) 202 through issuer (i) 202, where“I” can be up to and greater than an eight digit integer; at least onetransaction handler (th) 206 (e.g., the transaction handler) such astransaction handler (1) 206 through transaction handler (TH) 206, whereTH can be up to and greater than an eight digit integer; at least oneacquirer (q) (e.g., the acquirer) such as acquirer (1) 204 throughacquirer (Q) 204, where Q can be up to and greater than an eight digitinteger; the merchant (m) 104; and the consumer (c) 102. The consumer(c) 102 may be an account holder of the account issued by the issuer (i)202, such as a joint account holder, or someone with access to theaccount, such as an employee with access to a corporate account. Theacquirer (q) 204 and the issuer (i) 202 can communicate with the otherusers (102, 104, 206) of the payment processing system 200 via Net (n)108.

The account may be associated with an account identifier. The accountidentifier may be, for example, any code, symbol, number, letter,digital signal, analog signal, digital certificate, biometric code, orother indicia usable to distinguish or identify the consumer (c) 102 ora corresponding account of the consumer (c) 102. Nonetheless, theaccount identifier of the account may be used to distinguish the pasttransactions of the consumer (c) 102 without knowing the identify of theconsumer (c) 102, such as the legal name of the consumer (c) 102. Forexample, if ten of the past transactions of the consumer (c) 102 storedin the DB 110 were each conducted upon the account with the accountidentifier “4234567890123456,” then each of the ten past transactionscan be distinguished by filtering the data in the DB 110 using theaccount identifier “4234567890123456,” even without knowing the legalname of the consumer (c) 102 to whom the account was issued by issuer(i) 202.

The account identifier can be used for purposes other thandistinguishing the account, activities on the account, or the consumer(c) 102 within the payment processing system 200. For example, theaccount identifier may be a numeric code, wherein the first six numbersare a Bank Identification Number (BIN) that denotes the issuing bank andthe category of the account associated with the account identifier(e.g., “gold card” account).

Typically, a transaction begins with consumer (c) 102 presenting anaccount identifier of an account of consumer (c) 102 to merchant (m) 104to initiate an exchange of currency for a resource. Other data that maybe presented to merchant (m) 104 may include an expiration date, aconsumer name of the consumer (c) 102, and/or a Personal IdentificationNumber (PIN). The transfer of data may be in any format recognizable bythe merchant (m) 104, such as in a magnetic stripe track data format.For example, the consumer may present a PCD that is associated with theaccount to the POI of the merchant (m) 104 by swiping a plastic card ina magstripe card reader at the POI or by bringing an RFID enabled PCD inan effective proximity of an RFID reader so as to be interrogated.

Thereafter, the merchant (m) 104 may use the POI to form anauthorization request that may including transaction information aboutthe resource being purchased and the account identifier received fromthe consumer (c) 102. The transaction information may have several datafields. For example, as is known by those of ordinary skill in therelevant art, the data fields may include: a name of the consumer (c)102, the account identifier (e.g., Primary Account Number or “PAN”), anexpiration date of the PCD, a Card Verification Value (CVV), a PersonalIdentification Number (PIN), a discretionary code of the issuer of theaccount, a date, a time of the transaction, a merchant identifier (e.g.,merchant indicator) of the corresponding merchant (m) 104, data usableto determine a location of the merchant (m) 104, a POI identifier, atotal transaction amount, a Universal Product Code of the resource beingpurchased, a Stock Keeping Unit of the resource being purchased, apromotion code, or an acquirer code of the acquirer (q) 204 associatedwith the corresponding merchant (m) 104.

The authorization request may be communicated to the acquirer (q) 204,via Net (n) 108 using channels 114, 210. The acquirer (q) 204 forwardsthe authorization request, and perhaps other information, to transactionhandler (th) 206 via Net (n) 108 using, for example, channels 210, 118.Transaction handler (th) 206 may, in turn, forward the authorizationrequest, and perhaps other information, to the issuer (i) 202 thatissued the account via channels 118, 208. In some implementations, thetransaction handler (th) 206 may forward the authorization request toanother transaction handler (th+1) 206 who then forwards theauthorization request to issuer (i) 202.

An authorization response is transmitted in response to theauthorization request. An authorization response includes the issuer (i)202, or the transaction handler (th) 206 on behalf of the issuer (i)202, authorizing the transaction in connection with business rules forauthorization. For example, the issuer (i) 202 may determine that theaccount has enough funds to cover paying for the resources beingpurchased or that the transaction has a low risk of fraud based on adetermined location of the merchant (m) 104 that is conducting thetransaction with consumer (c) 102. Thereafter, the issuer (i) 202 mayform the authorization response for delivery to the transaction handler(th) 206. The transaction handler (th) 206 may forward the authorizationresponse to the acquirer (q) 204, who in turn forwards the authorizationresponse to merchant (m) 104. Once approved, merchant (m) 104 may recordthe authorization and provide the resource to the consumer (c) 102.

The merchant (m) 104 may, at discrete periods, such as the end of theday, submit a list of authorized transactions to the acquirer (q) 204for clearing and settlement. The acquirer (q) 204, in turn, requestsclearing and settlement from the transaction handler (th) 206. Thetransaction handler (th) 206 may, but need not, compare the submittedauthorized transaction list with its own log of authorized transactionsto find matches. The transaction handler (th) 206 may, in turn, routethe clearing and settlement request from the corresponding acquirer (q)204 to the corresponding issuer (i) 202 that is involved in thecorresponding transaction. Once the acquirer (q) 204 receives the fundsfrom the account upon which the transaction was conducted, where thefunds received from issuer (i) 202 matches a payment for the purchasedresource, acquirer (q) 204 can make the funds available to the merchant(m) 104 less any transaction costs, such as fees. If the transactioninvolves a debit or pre-paid account, the acquirer (q) 204 may choosenot to wait for the transfer of funds prior to paying the merchant (m)104.

There may be intermittent steps in the foregoing process, some of whichmay occur simultaneously. For example, the issuer (i) 202 may transferthe funds to a clearing bank, which in turn, sends the funds to asettling bank that forwards the funds to the corresponding merchant (m)104.

The transaction handler (th) 206 may maintain a log or history of thetransactions as they pass through the payment processing system 200. Inone implementation, the transaction handler (th) 206 may store thetransaction information received during the processing of thetransaction in the DB 110, such as: the transaction information receivedin the authorization request, the authorization response, or datareceived during the clearing and settlement process.

As stated previously, the data stored in the DB 110 in association withthe consumer (c) 102 or the account of the consumer (c) 102, may includeinformation about the consumer, such as demographics data for theconsumer (c) 102 or data derived from information about the pasttransactions of consumer (c) 102, hereinafter “transaction information”.Data derived from transaction information may include: a result from abankruptcy predictor algorithm, predicting the likelihood that aparticular of the consumer (1) 102 may file bankruptcy within a windowof time; or a history of frequently purchased resources paid for throughthe use of the account of the consumer (1) 102, for example. This datamay be derived through quantitative or qualitative research, marketsegment analysis, statistical modeling, regression analysis,econometrics, or data mining analysis, for example.

The payment processing system 200 can be operated in the environment ofFIG. 1 to perform functions of announcement system 100. The users (e.g.,the consumer (c) 102, the issuer (i) 202, the merchant (m) 104, theacquirer (q) 204, and/or the transaction handler (th) 206) in thepayment processing system 200 may communicate with one another via Net108 thereby transmitting or receiving information, such as thetransaction information stored in the DB 110.

Delivery of Announcement to Announcement Recipient

The user may select the content of the announcement, the announcementcondition and/or the announcement recipient. Thereafter, an announcementdistributor (e.g., host (h) 106) sends the announcement to the selectedannouncement recipient after the announcement condition is satisfied.

The announcement condition may be selected based on the user's desiredtargeting goals. The targeting goals may focus on the timing of thedelivery of the announcement, the relevance of the content of theannouncement to the activities of the announcement recipient, or thelocation of the announcement recipient at the time the announcementrecipient is to receive the announcement. For example, one of thetargeting goals may be to send the announcement when the consumer (c)102 is in a shopping mood, and therefore, more receptive to making apurchase or engaging in a transaction. Here, the announcement conditionmay be a real-time location of the consumer (c) 102 within a specifiedspatial zone (e.g., a specified shopping mall), for example. Toillustrate, the host (h) 106 may receive a signal including data aboutthe real-time location of the consumer (1) 102, such as a signal from aco-located cellular telephone of the consumer (1) 102, or a real-timeauthorization request for a transaction between the consumer (1) 102 andthe merchant (1) 104. The host (h) 106 may utilize the data in thereceived signal to determine the real-time location of the consumer (1)102, compare the determined real-time location of the consumer (1) 102with a criterion of the announcement condition to find a match (e.g.,the consumer (1) 102 is located in the specified shopping mall). If amatch is found, the announcement is sent to the consumer (1) 102 (orother announcement recipients) within temporal proximity to finding thematch (e.g., right after finding the match, within seconds or hours offinding the match). In this manner, the consumer (1) 102 may receive theannouncement while the consumer (1) 102 is still in the shopping moodand the user's desired targeting goals are met.

Referring to FIGS. 3 and 4, flowcharts depict an exemplary method 300this continued at reference numeral 400 in FIG. 4. In method 300, anannouncement distributor provides and/or auctions at least oneannouncement to at least one announcement recipient. At a step 302, anannouncement condition for announcing data to the announcement recipientis specified. In one implementation, at least one of the users specifiesthe announcement condition to host (−h) 106. For example, the merchant(m) 104 may select the announcement condition from a menu ofannouncement conditions at an interactive website linked to thetransaction handler (th) 206 via channel 118.

An announcement condition can be specified to include one or morecriterion. The announcement condition can be the occurrence of aphysical activity, the status of specific data, the existence of aparticular state, a time period (e.g., during daylight hours), alocation within a spatial zone (e.g., a consumer is situated within aspecified shopping mall but is not situated within a movie theater thatis in the shopping mall), etc. When the announcement condition issatisfied, delivery of the announcement to the announcement recipient(s)is triggered. For example, the criterion may include: the transactionhandler (th) 206 receiving one of the transactions of a selectedconsumer (c) 102 from the acquirer (q) 204 of the merchant (m) 104; ademographic of the consumer (c) 102; a category of the account of theconsumer (c) 102 (e.g., gold card); a window of time in which theannouncement is sent (e.g., sending the announcement: during hours ofoperation of a shop of the merchant (m) 104 or during the day, or duringa lunch hour); a transaction history of one of the accounts of theconsumer (c) 102, such as when a group of the transactions of theconsumer (c) 102 show a tendency to purchase a particular type ofresource; a tendency to purchase the resource of competitors of themerchant (m) 104; a seasonal trend in a purchasing behavior of theconsumer (c) 102; a status of the PCD (e.g., the cellular telephone is“on”) ; or a combination of the forgoing.

In some implementations, at least one of the criterions of theannouncement condition may be a presence or an absence of the consumer(c) 102 within a geographically specific zone (e.g., a region) such thatthe presence of the consumer (c) 102 in that zone triggers theannouncement and/or affects the content of the announcement. The zonemay be, for example, an Internet zone, a virtual zone, a spatial zone,or a combination thereof.

In one implementation, the announcement condition is specified to be thepresence of the consumer (c) 102 within an Internet zone, where a PCDidentified with the consumer (c) 102 is detected as being incommunication with a pre-selected group of network devices (e.g., Net(n) 108 through Net (n+3) 108) that are having logic addresses within aspecified set of Uniform Resource Locators (URLs), Internet Protocol(IP) addresses, or domain names (e.g., “.com and .org” or “www.cnn.comand www.msnbc.com”) with sub-domain names (e.g., www.cnn.com/health”).

In another implementation, the announcement condition is specified to bethe presence of the consumer (c) 102 within a virtual zone havingvirtual borders within a virtual environment. Such an environment isgraphically depicted in a display rendered by a computer. The consumer(c) 102 may be a gamer that operates a graphical user interface so as tonavigate a virtual character identifiable to consumer (c) 102 that isdetected as entering or exiting the virtual zone.

In another implementation, the announcement condition is specified to bethe detected presence of the consumer (c) 102 within a spatial zonehaving geographic borders, for instance, a specific radius of threekilometers defined about a specified center point located within a storeof merchant (m) 104 (e.g., within three kilometers above a locationwithin the store of the merchant (m) 104). However, the borders for thespatial zone need not have a defined and rigid geometric shape. In yetanother implementation, the announcement condition is specified to bethe detected absence of the consumer (c) 102 within a spatial zonehaving geographic borders. For instance, the condition may include theabsence of the consumer (c) 102 within one or more specifiedrestaurants. Therefore, if the consumer (c) 102 is detected to be in thespatial zone (i.e., the consumer is detected as being situated withinone of the specified restaurants), the condition is not satisfied andthe announcement recipient (e.g., the consumer (c) 102) will not receivethe announcement. For example, if the consumer (1) 102 is detected to bepresent within a restaurant, presumptively dinning out, the consumer (1)102 will not receive an announcement. In yet a further implementation,the announcement condition is specified to be the detected presence ofthe consumer (c) 102 within a first spatial zone having geographicborders and the detected absence of the consumer (c) 102 within a secondspatial zone. For example, the announcement condition can be specifiedto be the presence of the consumer (1) 102 near a specified street butnot near a specified cross section of the street with another street(e.g., consumer (1) 102, “Sally”, is near Michigan Street in Chicago,Ill. but is not detected as being at the cross section of Michigan andWacker in Chicago, Ill.).

An algorithm can be specified so as to operate upon data such that, whenthe algorithm operates on the data, a determination is made as towhether the announcement condition has been satisfied. In oneimplementation, the transaction handler (th) 206 may operate thealgorithm, by uses of a computing system, so as to access data stored inthe DB 110 or in data associated with transactions as they pass throughthe payment processing system 200. The operation of the algorithm uponthese data can thereby determine if the announcement condition has beensatisfied. For example, the announcement condition require that consumer(c) 102 be moving in a particular direction (e.g., movement towards oraway from the location of store of the merchant (m) 104). The algorithmmay operate upon position data for the consumer (c) 102 over a period oftime, where these data are derived the direction of movement of theconsumer (c) 102 or where the direction of the consumer (c) 102 mustmatch a required direction of movement and thereby satisfy anannouncement condition.

The announcement recipient may be selected at the step 302. Theannouncement recipient may be any individual or entity that can receivethe announcement, such as any of the users of an announcement system.The selection of the announcement recipient may include providing alogical address, such as an e-mail address or telephone number, that canbe used to electronically transmit the announcement to the announcementrecipient. For example, the merchant (m) 104 may specify theannouncement condition: “notify me at sale@merchant.com when any[consumer (c) 102] in [the payment processing system 200] has made anonline purchase of a tree from my competitor's retail nursery store.”Alternatively, or in combination, the announcement distributor may useany electronic method of looking up an address for an identifiedannouncement recipient. To illustrate, the consumer (1) 102 may specifyto the transaction handler (th) 206 that the consumer (2) 102 is theannouncement recipient. The transaction handler (th) 206 may access theDB 110 to determine the address of the consumer (2) 102 that can be usedto send the announcement to the consumer (2) 102.

The announcement recipient need not be the user specifying theannouncement condition. Stated another way, the criterion of theannouncement condition may be specified by one of the users of theannouncement system that is different from the announcement recipient.For example, the transaction handler (th) 206 specifying theannouncement condition can also specify the consumer (1) 102 as theannouncement recipient. To illustrate, the consumer (1) 102 may create aprofile with the transaction handler (th) 206 that includes an accountidentifier of an Individual Retirement Account (IRA) of the consumer (1)102. The transaction handler (th) 206 can specify: “if [the consumer (1)102] profile has an IRA, then determined a time zone of [the consumer(1) 102] based on a data received from a co-located cellular telephoneof [the consumer (1) 102] and send to the cellular telephone theannouncement about the status of stock trade rates for stock in the IRAevery Monday at 8:00 a.m. in the determined time zone.”

Similarly, other users of the announcement system may specify theconsumer (1) 102 as the announcement recipient for their respectiveannouncements. For example, the issuer (i) 202 that has issued theaccount to the consumer (c) 102 may specify the consumer (c) 102 as theannouncement recipient, such as “send the announcement to [the consumer(2) 102] after [the consumer (2) 102] has charged over $300 US on thecharge account that was issued to [the consumer (2) 102].” In yetanother example, the merchant (m) 104 may have a personal shopper thattypically assists the consumer (3) 102 when the consumer (3) 102 shopsat the store of the merchant (m) 104. The merchant (m) 104 may specifythe announcement condition such that the consumer (3) 102 receives amessage on their cellular telephone indicating whether or not thepersonal shopper is located at a store near the present location oftheir cellular telephone.

At a step 304, data usable to determine if the announcement conditionhas been satisfied is received via at least one of the Net (n) 108. Forexample, the received data may be the transaction information receivedduring the processing of the corresponding transaction in the paymentprocessing system 200. Alternatively, or in combination, the receiveddata may be the position data of the PCD received from the PCD or from aBluetooth reader via the Net (n) 108 (i.e., satellite network or theInternet), for example.

The received data may be the transaction information. To illustrate, atargeting merchant (m) 104 may be interested in transactions of atargeted consumer (c) 102 (e.g., one of the consumers 102 that has agold account). The transactions of the targeted consumer (c) 102 may bewith a surrogate merchant (m) 104, such as a competitor of the targetingmerchant (m) 104 or one of the merchants 104 that the targeting merchant(m) 104 is collaborating with to mutually increase sales to the consumer(c) 102. Therefore, the targeting merchant (m) 104 may specify theannouncement condition as the occurrence of the transaction between thetargeted consumer (c) 102 and the surrogate merchant (m) 104 within thepayment processing system 200. When the transaction handler (th) 206receives an authorization request for a transaction between thesurrogate merchant (m) 104 and the targeted consumer (c) 102, thetransaction handler (th) 206 may process the transaction as usual,forwarding the authorization request to the corresponding issuer (i) 202for authorization. The transaction handler (th) 206 may also use thetransaction information in the received authorization request todetermine if any of the announcement conditions in the announcementsystem 100 have been satisfied at a step 306. Here, the transactionhandler (th) 206 may determine that the announcement condition of thetargeting merchant (m) 104 is satisfied, or has occurred, because theconsumer (c) 102 has conducted a transaction with the surrogate merchant(m) 104.

If the announcement condition is the presence of the consumer (c) 102within a geographic zone, the received data may be data usable todetermine the location of the consumer (c) 102. For example, thereceived data can be the transaction information that is receivedapproximately in real-time, or can be data that is received from aco-located PCD of the consumer (c) 102. The transaction informationreceived approximately in real-time may be an authorization request thatis transmitted to the transaction handler (th) 206. The authorizationrequest may contain a code from which the location of the merchant (m)104 can be determined, such as a Merchant Category Code (MCC) or anothermerchant identifier of the corresponding merchant (m) 104. In oneimplementation, the transaction handler (th) 206 may presume that theconsumer (c) 102 is still in the same location as the POI of themerchant (m) 104 as the authorization of the transaction is occurringbecause the transaction information is being received approximately inreal-time. As such, the location of the consumer (c) 102 can be reliablydetermined from the code that was received code with the authorizationrequest.

Alternatively, or in combination with the above implementation, thereceived data may include data from a PCD that is co-located withconsumer (c) 102. The PCD will be deemed to be co-located with theconsumer (c) 102 when the location of the consumer (c) 102 can bereasonably determined from data received from the PCD. For example, thePCD of the consumer (c) 102 may be a cellular telephone with locationdetecting capabilities as are known in the art (e.g., cellulartelephony, triangulation, global positioning system (GPS), the PCD'sdetection of wireless networks the geographic location of which can bedetermined from a preexisting database of wireless network locations,etc.) To illustrate, the consumer (c) 102 may carry a cellular telephonehaving a GPS receive, or a functional equivalent thereof, while shoppingat a shopping mall. As such, the cellular telephone will receivelocation coordinates from which the location of the PCD can determined.The determined position, or coordinates, may in turn, be transmitted tothe host (h) 106 via the Net (n) 108. The determined position can beexpressed in a variety of forms including: a street address; a latitude,a longitude or an altitude; World Geodetic System coordinates; datausable to determine a direction, speed, and/or acceleration of the PCD'smovement; combinations of the forgoing, or a time rate of change of theforegoing, etc.

The received data may contain information from more than one of thePCDs. For example, a first consumer (1) 102 may have a first PCD that iswireless Radio Frequency IDentifier (RFID) enabled payment card thatdoes not have position detecting capabilities, while a second consumer(2) 102 may have a second PCD that is an RFID receiver and a locationdetector. The first and second PCDs may come in close proximity to eachother. The first PCD may transmit a radio frequency signal containing afirst consumer identifier of the first consumer (1) 102 to the secondPCD. The second PCD may, in turn, transmits both its real-time locationand the first consumer identifier to the host (h) 106 via channel 112that connects the second consumer (2) 102 to the Net (n) 108, andchannel 118.

At a step 306, the data received in the step 304 is used to determinewhether the announcement condition is satisfied. The data received inthe step 306 and/or the data stored in the DB 110, may be accessed andcompared to each of the criteria of the announcement condition todetermine if there is a corresponding match. If the match exists, thenthe announcement condition is deemed to be satisfied. Logic rules maydictate which, or how many, of the criteria should be matched in orderto determine the announcement condition as satisfied. For example, thelogic rules may indicate that the data received in the step 306 and/orthe data stored in the DB 110 should either match both a first criterionand a second criterion or match a third criterion to determine theannouncement condition as satisfied.

In the above example, the targeting merchant (m) 104 may have specifiedthe announcement condition as: “when one of [the consumers (1−c) 102],having a gold credit account, shops with my direct or substitutecompetitor, send [the consumer (c) 102] the announcement including myoffer.” After an authorization request is sent to the transactionhandler (th) 206 from the POI of the competitor merchant (m) 104, thetransaction handler (th) 206 may compare the data in the authorizationrequest with the data stored in the DB 110 to determine if theannouncement condition is satisfied. For example, the transactionhandler (th) 206 may determine if the authorization request is for atransaction with the direct competitor of the targeting merchant (m) 104by comparing a merchant identifier in the authorization request with themerchant identifier of the targeting merchant (m) 104 stored in the DB110. If the merchant identifiers are each associated with the samemerchant category, then the authorization request is for a transactionwith a direct competitor of the targeting merchant (m) 104. Similarly,the transaction handler (th) 206 may determine if the authorizationrequest is for a transaction with the substitute competitor of thetargeting merchant (m) 104 by determining that the merchant categoriesof each of the targeting merchant (m) 104 and the surrogate merchant (m)104 are associated with one another. For example, the merchant categoryof the targeting merchant (m) 104 may be for a “pastry shop” while themerchant category of the surrogate merchant (m) 104 may be for an “icecream shop.” The “pastry shop” merchant category and the “ice creamshop” merchant category may be associated with one another because eachcorresponding merchant (m) 104 may be considered a retailer of sweetfood items that can serve as deserts. Therefore, because the merchantcategories are associated with one another, such as by correspondingidentifiers that are logically associated with their merchantcategories, they can be considered as substitute competitors.

Other criterion of the announcement condition of the targeting merchant(m) 104 may also be matched. For example, the transaction handler (th)206 may determine that the consumer (c) 102 has the gold credit accountby comparing a received BIN in the authorization request with the BINsof gold credit accounts stored in the DB 110. In another example, theannouncement condition may include a specified name of the targetedconsumer (1) 102 (at the step 302). The transaction handler (th) 206 mayuse an account identifier received in the authorization request toaccess the DB 110 and retrieve a name of the consumer (c) 102 associatedwith the account identifier. If the name retrieved from the DB 110matches the specified name of the targeted consumer (1) 102, then thecorresponding criterion is considered satisfied.

Data received in the step 304 can be used to derive other data that isthen compared with the criterion. For example, the issuer (i) 202 mayhave specified the announcement condition “send the announcement to mewhen [the consumer (c) 102] that is located in the mall is within $100US of the credit limit of the account that was issued to [the consumer(c) 102].” Thereafter, the transaction handler (th) 206 receives anauthorization request for a transaction of the consumer (c) 102 that isbeing conducted upon that account for $50 US. The transaction handler(th) 206 may then calculate the total charge on the account by combiningthe newly charged $50 US with the transaction history of the account ofthe consumer (c) 102 that is stored in the DB 110. The transactionhandler (th) 206 may then compare the calculated total charge with theabove $100 US criterion to determine if the announcement condition issatisfied.

In another example, the PCD of the consumer (c) 102 may execute analgorithm that determines if a criteria of a corresponding announcementcondition is met, and then transmit its determination to the host (h)106. For example, the PCD of the consumer (1) 102 may have an appletthat not only receives and transmits location data but also determineswhether the PCD is in a spatial zone matching a criterion of theannouncement condition. To illustrate, the consumer (1) 102 may create aprofile on an interactive website of the host (h) 106 for use in theannouncement system 100. The consumer (1) 102 may indicate an interestin receiving announcements when the consumer (1) 102 is located thespatial zone. The consumer (1) 102 may download information about thespatial zone unto the PCD of the consumer (1) 102. When the location ofthe PCD is determined by the PCD, the PCD may compare its determinedlocation with the downloaded information about the spatial zone to seeif there is a match. The PCD may transmit the matching result to thehost (h) 106, thereby indicating that the consumer (1) 102 is in thespatial zone. The host (h) 106 may, in turn, determine if anannouncement condition for any user in the announcement system 100 hasbeen satisfied by the presence of the consumer (1) 102 in the spatialzone. If an announcement condition is satisfied, then the host (h) 106may transmit to the PCD of the consumer (1) 102 the announcement thatcorresponds to the announcement while the PCD is still within thatspatial zone.

Alternatively, or in combination, the PCD may determine if theannouncement condition is satisfied. In one implementation, the PCD maydownload an applet usable to determine if at least one announcementcondition is satisfied. The PCD can determine its location and, viaexecution of the applet, compare its location with at least one locationcriterion (e.g., a specified spatial zone) of a corresponding downloadedannouncement condition to see if there is a match. The PCD may form atransmission addressed to the host (h) 106 indicating an outcome of thiscomparison. For example, if the corresponding criteria of at least oneof the announcement conditions is satisfied, the PCD can form atransmission informing the host (h) 106 of those announcement conditionsthat were satisfied. The host (h) 106 may, in turn, form a transmissionthat includes an announcement corresponding to the satisfiedannouncement condition(s) for delivery thereof to correspondingannouncement recipient(s).

At a step 308, a determination is optionally made as to whether theannouncement distributor has consented to distribute the at least oneannouncement to the announcement recipient. For example, while a firstuser may affirmatively consent to distribution of data about the firstuser within the announcement system 100, a second user may request thatthe data about the second user not be distributed to any other user butthe second user. To illustrate, the transaction handler (th) 206 maydetermine access rights by, for example, determining if the consumer (c)102 can have access to the transaction information of the merchant (m)104 based on contractual obligations of the transaction handler (th) 206to the merchant (m) 104. In another example, the announcementdistributor may be restrained from lawfully sending announcement due toprivacy laws that may apply to the distribution of the data in theannouncement. In such cases, the announcement distributor will be deemednot to have consented to distribute the announcement.

If at least one of the announcements is to be sent to the announcementrecipient after an auction, the step 310 proceeds to a step 402 in theFIG. 4, otherwise the step 310 proceeds to a step 312.

At the step 312, the delivery of the announcement to the announcementrecipient is facilitated if the announcement condition is satisfied inthe step 306. In the above example of the targeting merchant (m) 104 andthe surrogate merchant (m) 104, the announcement may be sent to thetargeting merchant (m) 104, wherein the announcement includes data aboutthe transaction of the surrogate merchant (m) 104 with the consumer (c)102. For example, the targeting merchant (m) 104 may receive atransmission indicating that the consumer (c) 102, having the goldcredit account, has just purchased a Rolex® watch from the surrogatemerchant (m) 104. Having received the announcement, the targetingmerchant (m) 104 may send a personalized catalog to the consumer (c) 102via e-mail. The catalog, for instance, could be showcasing accessoriesfor the Rolex® watch that are sold by the targeting merchant (m) 104.

As stated previously, the announcement may be transmitted to any of thesuitable communication devices of the announcement recipient via the Net(n) 108. For example, the announcement may be sent via channel 114 tothe POI of the merchant (m) 104 for delivery to the consumer (c) 102,such as when the announcement is printed on the back of a paper receiptmemorializing the transaction with the consumer (c) 102. Alternatively,or in combination, the announcement may be first received at the POI ofthe merchant (m) 104, and then be sent to the PCD of the consumer (c)102 via an RFID transmission across channel 116. In another example, theannouncement may be sent to the PCD (e.g., the cellular telephone) ofthe consumer (c) 102 via channel 112, such as when the consumer (c) 102receives an e-mail at an e-mail enabled cellular telephone, where thee-mail contains an offer of the merchant (m) 104. In another example,the announcement may be sent to the issuer (i) 202 via channel 208, suchas when the issuer (i) 202 receives the announcement: at a computer ofthe issuer (i) 202 informing the issuer (i) 202 that the consumer (c)102 typically uses the account issued by the issuer (i) 202 to purchasechildren's shoes in the month of September and it is currently the monthof August; or as an automated voice message sent to a telephone of theissuer (i) 202 and informing the issuer (i) 202 that a small-businessaccount of the consumer (c) 102 is nearing its credit limit. In yetanother example, the acquirer (q) 204 may receive an announcement thatwas sent over channels 210, 114, where the announcement informs theacquirer (q) 204 that a payment toward a purchase order of the merchant(m) 104, long overdue, has finally been cleared and settled.

In some implementations, the announcement may facilitate communicationabout the resources of the merchant (m) 104 to the consumer (c) 102. Forexample, the merchant (1) 104 may receive the announcement including thename of the consumer (1) 102 that was detected as just having walkedinto one of the stores of the merchant (1) 104. The merchant (1) 104 maysearch a local merchant database to determine if the consumer (1) 102has a personal shopper that has assisted the consumer (1) 102 in thepast. The merchant (1) 104 may have an automated voice message sent tothe personal shopper. The automated voice message may request that thepersonal shopper greet the consumer (1) 102 as well as market theresources of the merchant (m) 104 to the consumer (1) 102 as also as theconsumer (1) 102 is still in the one of the stores of the merchant (1)104.

After the announcement is received, other transmissions can be sentthrough the announcement system 100. For example, the announcementrecipient may send a confirmation that the announcement was received orform a transmission to the host (h) 106 for delivery to anotherannouncement recipient. To illustrate, the announcement may be receivedas a coupon that can be graphically rendered by a browser executing on aPCD of the consumer (3) 102, where the rendered coupon has hyperlinkedbuttons for accepting or declining an offer of the merchant (1) 104. Theconsumer (3) 102 may electronically accept the offer of the merchant (1)104 by selecting an “accept” button rendered on by the browser of thePCD. The acceptance may be transmitted to the Net (3) 108, and then sentto the merchant (1) 104 via channel 114. Alternatively, or incombination, the acceptance may be transmitted via the Net (1) 108 tothe acquirer (q) 204 via channel 210, and then sent to the merchant (1)104 via channel 210 to Net (2) 108, and then sent to the merchant (1)104 via channel 114.

Alternatively, or in combination, if at least one announcementdistribution is to be auctioned to the user(s) of the announcementsystem, then the method 300 moves from the step 310 to a step 402 of theFIG. 4. The announcement system 100 may be used to auction anannouncement opportunity. The successful bidder(s) of the action willthereby by the announcement opportunity to have one or moreannouncements delivered to one or more announcement recipients.

At a step 404, at least one auction participant (e.g., one of the users)is notified that the announcement opportunity is up for auction. In oneimplementation, the transaction handler (th) 206 may transmit anelectronic message via the Net (n) 108 to the users that have indicatedan interest in taking part in the auction within the announcement system100. For example, the electronic message may be an alert sent to acomputer of each auction participant, such as a pop up window enabled byan Internet browser executing on the computer of the auctionparticipant. The alert may have a hyperlink to the website at which theauction participant can submit bids to ‘win’ the announcementopportunity. Alternatively, the electronic message may be an e-mailmessage or an electronic voice message sent to the auction participant.Other forms of electronic messages, as are know by those of ordinaryskill in the relevant art, are also contemplated.

The auction may initiate after an auction initiating condition has beensatisfied. For example, the auction initiating condition may be arequired number of auction participants for a particular auction. Otherauction initiating conditions may include: a time of day, a date, anumber of announcement opportunities that can be bundled and auctionedtogether, receipt of an auctioning fee from the auction participants,the satisfaction of a particular announcement condition (e.g., presenceof the consumer (c) 102 in the zone), or a combination of the foregoing.

The auction for the announcement opportunity may be initiated before,during, or after the announcement condition is satisfied because theauction initiating condition and the announcement condition need not bethe same. For example, the auction initiating condition may be aparticular time of a particular day (e.g., 9:00 a.m. on Jul. 10, 2008)that the auction is to begin, while the announcement condition may bethe presence of the consumer (c) 102 in the spatial zone after theparticular time of the particular day. Consequently, in this example,the auction participants may submit bids on Jul. 10, 2008 and thewinning bidder(s) of the auction will receive the opportunity to sendannouncement(s) to the consumer (c) 102 when the consumer (c) 102 entersthe spatial zone, for instance, on the later date of Oct. 31, 2008.

Alternatively, the announcement condition and the auction initiatingcondition may be same. For example, if the auction initiating conditionand the announcement condition is the presence of the consumer (c) 102in the spatial zone, the auction participants may receive a notice thatthe auction has commenced when the consumer (c) 102 enters the spatialzone. Thereafter, the winners of the auction can be selected and thewinners of the auction can have their respective announcements deliveredwhile the consumer (c) 102 is still present in the spatial zone.

The auction may be electronically conducted. For example, the auctionparticipants may access an auction website at which the auctionparticipant or agent thereof may submit a corresponding bid to anauctioneer for the announcement opportunity to have their announcementdelivered to the announcement recipient. In one implementation, theauction participant may log onto a secure website and submit bids to thehost (h) 106 via in an interactive, live electronic auction. In anotherimplementation, the auction participant may transmit an e-mailcontaining a silent bid to the transaction handler (th) 206 that is theauctioneer of the announcement opportunity in an electronic auction thatis not live.

The auction may be any of a variety of auction types. For example, as isknown by those of ordinary skill in the relevant art, the auction canbe:

-   -   an English auction, wherein bidders bid openly toward an        ascending price;    -   a Dutch auction, wherein bidders bid openly toward a descending        price;    -   a buyout auction wherein any bidder can immediately win the        auction by bidding a preset price;    -   a sealed-bid first-price auction, wherein bidders submit sealed        bids that are not known by other bidders and the winner is the        highest bidder;    -   a sealed-bid second-price auction, wherein bidders submit sealed        bids and the winner pays the second highest bid that was        submitted rather than the highest bid that was submitted;    -   a silent auction, wherein bidders submit silent bids and the        highest bidder, who is the winner of the auction, pays the price        that they submitted;    -   an all-pay auction wherein bidders pay their bids regardless of        whether the bidder has the winning bid;    -   a combinatorial auction, wherein bidders bid on packages of        bidding items in an “all-or-nothing” fashion;    -   a reserve auction, wherein the auctioned item will not be sold        if the final bid is below a preset price;    -   a no-reserve auction, wherein the auctioned item will be sold        regardless of price;    -   a reverse auction wherein multiple announcement distributors        compete by offering progressively lower prices for at least one        announcement;    -   a round robin auction wherein bidders submit bids prior to a        deadline, receive notice of the highest bid, and are given a        chance to outbid the highest bid;    -   a Walrasian auction, wherein the auctioneer takes bids from both        buyers (e.g., the consumers (1−c) 102) and sellers (e.g., the        merchants (1−m) 104) and concludes the auction when the supply        and demand match;    -   a supply auction, wherein multiple seller sell bid items that a        buyer requests;    -   a demand auction, wherein buyers bid for the bid item being        sold;    -   a double auction, wherein multiple buyers bid for multiple bid        items of multiple sellers;    -   an open auction, wherein bidders are aware of each other's bids        and can each bid multiple times;    -   a closed auction, wherein bidders submit sealed bids;    -   a raffle, wherein bidders pay a set price for an opportunity to        randomly win the auction; or    -   a combination of the forgoing.

At a step 406, at least one bid from at least one auction participant isreceived. For example, the acquirer (q) 204 may transmit an SMS text tothe transaction handler (th) 206 via the Net (n) 108 including amonetary bid to receive an announcement containing data about thetransaction history of the consumer (c) 102. In another example, theconsumer (c) 102 may log onto an auction website using a desktopcomputer or the PCD of the consumer (c) 102 to bid on an announcementcontaining data about resources that had been previously sold at a storeof the merchant (m) 104. The bid may offer currency, such as money orpoints, in exchange for the announcement opportunity. In the exampleabove, the consumer (c) 102 may bid 1000 points for the announcementopportunity to receive the announcement containing data about theresources of the merchant (m) 104.

The users interested in participating in the auction (e.g., “auctionparticipants”, “bidders”, “buyers”, or “sellers”) are each given achance to place a bid for an announcement opportunity. In this case, theannouncement opportunity being auction is the right to receive anannouncement that consumers having gold cards are in a particularshopping. In this case, merchant (1) 104 and merchant (2) 104 may eachbe interested in receiving the announcement indicating when theconsumers 102, having corresponding gold cards, have entered a mall thatincludes stores of merchant (1) 104 and merchant (2) 104. An auctioneer(e.g., the host (h) 106 or agent thereof) may auction the announcementopportunity to merchant (1) 104 and merchant (2) 104. If, for example,merchant (1) 104 wins the auction by having the highest monetary bid forthe announcement opportunity, the auctioneer may send the announcementto merchant (1) 104 and but not to merchant (2) 104. Alternatively, theauction may have multiple winners such that each of merchant (1) 104 andmerchant (2) 104 receive the announcement of the gold card shoppersbeing in the shopping mall.

The bidder may indicate who the bidder designates to be the announcementrecipient of the announcement being auctioned. For example, the merchant(1) 104 may be interested in participating in an auction to have anoffer of the merchant (1) 104 to be delivered to the consumer (c) 102that is present in the spatial zone. If the merchant (1) 104 has thewinning bid in the auction, the consumer (c) 102 will receive the offerof the merchant (1) 104 after the consumer (c) 102 enters the spatialzone.

At a step 408, a winning bid is selected based on at least one bidcriterion. The bid criterion may be, for example: a required format forthe bid (e.g., having a name of the bidder, a required deposit,receiving the bid within a window of time); a highest monetary offeramong the corresponding monetary offers; a lowest monetary offer amongthe corresponding monetary offers; or a combination thereof. Differenttypes of the auctions may have different winning bid criteria. Toillustrate, in the reserve auction, one of the bid criterion may be thata currency amount of the winning bid must be higher than a preset price.

At a step 410, the auction participants, such as a subset of the usersthat submitted a corresponding bid, are notified about the results ofthe auction, such as being notified about a selection of a winning bid.For example, the transaction handler (th) 206 may post at an auctionwebsite that the auction has ended, wherein the auction participants canaccess the auction website and receive the posting. Alternatively, thehost (h) 106 may send a notification to the winning bidders that eachhave won the auction to receive the announcement, which will bedelivered after the announcement condition has been satisfied.

At a step 412, if the announcement condition is satisfied, the deliveryof the announcement to the announcement recipient is facilitated. Forexample, after the announcement condition is satisfied, the host (h) 106may transmit an e-mail containing the announcement to the designatedannouncement recipient.

The steps in FIGS. 3-4 may be conducted in any order and/or may berepeated several times. For example, the bid for the announcementopportunity to have the announcement delivered may be received (the step406) prior to the step 304, wherein the data usable to determine thatthe announcement condition is satisfied is received. Alternatively, orin combination, the step 304 of receiving the data usable to determinethat the condition is satisfied may be repeated several times prior todetermining that the announcement condition is satisfied (the step 306).

The users of the announcement system 100 may receive reports. Thereports may include, for example, a frequency of use of the announcementsystem 100, a number of times the announcement was sent to theannouncement recipient, the number of times the announcement recipientresponded to the announcement by sending a subsequent message throughthe announcement system 100, the bids submitted for the correspondingannouncement opportunity, or data stored in the DB 110.

Exemplary Implementations

For exemplary purposes only, a number of implementations are describedbelow. The announcement system 100 may be used to: announce thetransaction history of the consumer (c) 102 to the users; announce orauction an announcement about the presence of the consumer (c) 102 in aspatial zone; announce the virtual presence of the consumer (c) 102online and browsing one or more Internet websites in a defined groupthereof; announce, to the merchant (m) 104, the actions of the consumer(c) 102 relative to a second, surrogate, merchant (m) 104; announce dataabout the past transactions of the merchant (m) 104 to the consumer (c)102; or announce, to the consumer (c) 102, data about the transactionsof other of the consumers 102 in a consumer group, for example.

Transaction History Announcement and Auction Example

In this example, users of announcement system 100 receive anannouncement containing data about a transaction history of one of theaccounts of consumer (1) 102 and can bid for an announcement opportunityto receive a second announcement containing the spend on a plurality ofthe accounts. For example, the consumer (1) 102 may have three (3)accounts within the payment processing system 200—a Wells Fargo® chargeaccount, an M&I® debit account, and a Walgreens® gift account, eachhaving a respective issuer (i) 202. Each of the issuers (i+1, i+2, andi+3) 202 may have specified to the transaction handler (th) 206 theannouncement condition (the step 302) indicating an interest inreceiving an announcement containing information about the spend on thethree (3) accounts over a duration of time, such a month. Thetransaction handler (th) 206 may receive the transaction information fora plurality of transactions between the consumer (c) 102 and a pluralityof merchants 104 upon the three (3) accounts (the step 306). At the endof a month, the transaction handler (th) 206 may calculate a spend ofthe consumer (1) 102 on each of the three accounts for the month (thestep 304). The transaction handler (th) 206 may announce the spend onone of the accounts to the corresponding issuer (i) 202 (the step 312)while auctioning off, to each of the three issuers (i+1, i+2, and i+3)202, the announcement opportunity to receive the information about thespend on all three (3) accounts (the step 410). Each of the threeissuers (i+1, i+2, and i+3) 202 may electronically submit monetary bidsfor the announcement opportunity (the step 406) to the transactionhandler (th) 206 via an interactive website where an open auction isconducted for the announcement opportunity to receive the full spendreport. The transaction handler (th) 206 may select two winning bidshaving the top two monetary values (the step 408). The transactionhandler (th) 206 may transmit a message via the Net (n) 108 to thewinning bidders indicating that each has won the auction (the step 410).For example, the transaction handler (th) 206 may transmit theannouncement including the information about the spend on the threeaccounts to each of the winning bidders by sending e-mails to the eachof the winning bidders (the step 412). Each issuer (i) 202 having arespective winning bid may, in turn, take action on the receivedannouncement, such as providing new account incentives to the consumer(1) 102 in order to shift more of the spend on each of the threeaccounts to the account that the respective issuer (i) 202 hadpreviously issued to the consumer (1) 102.

Spatial Zone Triggered Announcement & Auction Example

In this example, several users of the announcement system specifycorresponding announcement conditions, wherein delivery of acorresponding announcement is triggered by the presence of the consumer(c) 102 in a particular spatial zone. For example, four of the users mayenroll in an announcement program of the transaction handler (th) 206.Each of the users may pay a subscription price to the transactionhandler (th) 206 to be able to participate as one of the users in theannouncement system 100. The users may include: a targeted consumer (1)102 (“Sam”), a Starbucks® franchiser of Starbucks® coffee shops, a WellsFargo® issued first account of Sam, and an M&I® issued second account ofSam, wherein each of the first and second accounts are associated with arespective RFID enabled PCD. One of the Starbucks® stores may install anRFID reader at its entrance that detects RFID enabled PCDs of consumers102 as they enter the store.

Each of the users in the announcement system 100 may specify respectiveannouncement conditions (the step 302). For example, the Starbucks®franchisor may create a profile at a website of the host (h) 106. Theprofile may include a tailored greeting message, updated intermittently,that the Starbucks® franchisor would like to be delivered to anyconsumer 102 in the announcement system 100 that (1) is moving in atarget direction (e.g., toward one of the Starbucks® stores) and (2) haspreviously made a purchase from the Starbucks® store located in thetarget direction. The tailored greeting message may be, for example,“Hello [name of the any consumer (c) 102], should we prepare your usual[name the resource typically purchased a the Starbucks® store] beforeyou arrive?” Similarly, the Wells Fargo® issuer and the M&I® issuer mayeach use the website to specify a respective announcement condition,such as, “send, to any consumer (c) 102 that has entered a spatial zone,an announcement including an offer of reward points if the correspondingconsumer (c) 102 conducts a transaction on the account that we issued tothe consumer (c) 102.” The consumer (1) 102, “Sam”, may also specify anannouncement condition, wherein Sam specifies that Sam does not want toreceive any announcements from the users of the announcement system 100if the announcement is making an offer to Sam that is below a thresholdof three hundred (300) loyalty points.

Sam may use a monthly train pass to enter a transit system to travel tohis place of employment, where the place of employment and a Starbucks®store are each located within a specified spatial zone. The transactionhandler (th) 206 may receive information from the transit system thatcan be used by the transaction handler (th) 206 to deduce that Sam hasentered the transit system (the step 304). The transaction handler (th)206 can also access the data stored in the DB 110 (e.g., the transactionhistory of the accounts issued to Sam) to determine that Sam typicallypurchases a latte hot drink from the Starbucks® store approximatelythirty minutes after San enters the transit system. Consequently, thetransaction handler (th) 206 can determine that the announcementcondition of the Starbucks franchisor is satisfied because (1) Sam hasmoved in the direction of Starbucks® store (the step 306) and (2) Samhas previously purchased a latte at the Starbucks® store. Thetransaction handler (th) 206, upon satisfaction of this announcementcondition, may send this tailored greeting message: “Hello Sam, shouldwe prepare your usual latte before you arrive?”, which message will bedelivered to Sam in a pop up window rendered on a co-located cellulartelephone known to be carried by Sam (the step 312). Sam may respond byselecting “yes” on the pop up window, for subsequent real timetransmission from Sam's cellular telephone. The Starbucks® store canreceive notice of Sam's interactively input choice by conventionalmeans, such as by its receipt of an e-mail at an e-mail addressassociated with the Starbucks® store as was sent via the Net (n) 108.Moreover, the transaction handler (th) 206 may make the transaction forthe latte payable upon one of Sam's accounts (e.g., either his WellsFargo® account or his M&I® account). Therefore, Sam can simply enter theStarbucks® store, pick up and begin to enjoy his already-prepared andwaiting latte, thereby avoiding waiting in line to order and/or pay.

Once Sam enters the Starbucks® store, its RFID reader at its entrancecan read the account identifier of each of his first and the secondaccounts as are detected by Sam's respective co-located PCDs. This RFIDreader may form a transmission for delivery to the transaction handler(th) 206 via the Net (n) 108. The transmission may include the accountidentifiers read by the RFID reader and location data usable todetermine the location of the RFID reader (the step 304). Thetransaction handler (th) 206 may compare the account identifiersreceived in the transmission with account identifiers stored in the DB110 to match the account identifiers with Sam's' first and secondaccounts which have already been associated with the announcementprogram. Moreover, the transaction handler (th) 206 may use the locationdata to determine the location the RFID reader, and compare thedetermined location with the spatial zone to find that Sam's' locationis the same as the location of the RFID reader. In this manner, thetransaction handler (th) 206 can determine that the announcementcondition of each of the Wells Fargo® issuer and the M&I® issuer aresatisfied (at the step 306).

Under the announcement program, the announcement opportunity tocommunicate with Sam may be auctioned to the issuers 202 in theannouncement system 100. Each of the Wells Fargo® issuer and the M&I®issuer may receive the notification that the auction for theannouncement opportunity to deliver an offer of reward points has begun(the step 404). Each of the Wells Fargo® issuer and the M&I® issuer maysubmit respective monetary bids to the transaction handler (th) 206.Here, the Wells Fargo® issuer may bid 500 loyalty points for atransaction on Sam's first account and the M&I® issuer may bid 200loyalty points for a transaction on Sam 's second account (the step406). The transaction handler (th) 206 may use the bid criterion todetermine the winner of the auction (the step 408). For example, thetransaction handler (th) 206 may check both the value of the respectivebids and an announcement condition previously specified by Sam todetermine the winner of the auction. Here, Sam had the announcementcondition that announcements offering below 300 loyalty point should notbe sent to Sam. Given the bid amount and the announcement condition ofSam, in this example, the Wells Fargo® issuer would be deemed to be thewinner of the auction. Sam may receive the announcement on his PCDincluding the offer of loyalty points of the Wells Fargo® issuer. Theannouncement, for instance, may be personalized based on the transactioninformation of Sam, such as: “if you purchase your usual latte with yourWells Fargo® account, Wells Fargo will give you 500 loyalty pointstoward your loyalty program” (the step 412). Sam may, but need not,confirm that the transaction should be conducted upon the Wells Fargo®account, such as by interactive use of a User Interface (UI) on Sam'sPCD.

Any of the above three users may receive a report of announcements sentthrough the announcement system 100 dealing with the announcementprogram. For example, the M&I® issuer may be notified about why it didnot win the auction, the Wells Fargo® issuer may receive a report on howmany of the announcements were sent to consumers 102 that met theannouncement condition of the Wells Fargo® issuer; the Starbucks®franchiser may receive a report on how sales have increased or decreasedafter the tailored greeting messages were sent as determined from thetransaction information of the Starbucks® store stored in the DB 110 forthe consumers 102 that received the announcements including thecorresponding greeting messages; or Sam may receive a report on how manyof the announcements were blocked given his announcement condition, forexample.

Internet Zone Announcement

Here, the announcement recipient receives the announcement that istriggered by the presence of the consumer (c) 102 in an Internet Zone.For example, the merchant (m) 104, a manufacturer of power tools, mayaccess an interactive website of the host (h) 106 to specify theannouncement condition “send me an email when any [consumer 102] betweenthe ages of 30-60 years (the targeted consumer (c) 102) conducts anon-line purchase of the resources of a home improvement retailer” (thestep 302). The transaction handler (th) 206 may receive an authorizationrequest for an on-line transaction via the Net (n) 108 (the step 304),wherein the authorization request includes an account identifier and acode indicating that it is an on-line transaction. The transactionhandler (th) 206 may forward the authorization request to thecorresponding issuer (i) 202 of the account identified in theauthorization request. The transaction handler (th) 206 may also use thetransaction information in the authorization request to determinewhether the announcement condition has been satisfied (the step 306).The transaction handler (th) 206 may determine that the announcementcondition is satisfied by: (1) comparing the merchant identifier of themerchant (m) 104 that was received in the authorization request with themerchant identifier of “home improvement retailers;” (2) using thereceived code to determine that the transaction was conducted on-line;(3) using the received account identifier to retrieve from the DB 110the age of the consumer (c) 102 engaged in the on-line transaction; and(4) comparing the retrieved age with the age range 30-40 criterion tofind a match. If a match exits, the transaction handler (th) 206 maysend an e-mail about the on-line transaction to the manufacturer of thepower tools (the step 312).

Targeting Merchant (m) 104 Announcement Example

In this example, consumer (c) 102 receives an announcement that istriggered based on the actions of the consumer (c) 102 with a surrogatemerchant (m) 104. The announcement may contain information about atargeting merchant (m) 104 that is different from the surrogate merchant(m) 104. The surrogate merchant (m) 104 can be, for example: acompetitor of the targeting merchant (m) 104; one of the merchants 104that is in the zone of interest to the targeting merchant (m) 104; oneof the merchants 104 that has a contractual agreement to help market theresources of the targeting merchant (m) 104; one of the merchants 104whose transactions tend to occur within a temporal proximity of thetransactions of the targeting merchant (m) 104; or one of the merchants104 whose resources are utilized within a temporal proximity of thetransactions of the targeting merchant (m) 104. Temporal proximity canbe a time span from instantly, immediately, or in real time to a timespan that is less than seven (7) days, for example.

In one implementation, the announcement condition may be based onoccurrence of the transaction between the consumer (c) 102 and thesurrogate merchant (m) 104. As stated previously, the targeting merchant(m) 104 may specify the announcement condition (the step 302) as apurchase by the consumer (c) 102 from the surrogate merchant (m) 104.The targeting merchant (m) 104 may select the surrogate merchant (m) 104by name (e.g., “a Wal-Mart® store located on 5th Ave”), a category(“clothing retailer”), or location (e.g., “the Mills Mall”), forexample. The announcement condition can further delineate: the type ofthe consumers 102 that are targeted (e.g., “Sally Smith,” “thoseconsumers 102 that frequently shop with me,” or “gold card members”) orother parameters such as the purchase amount (e.g., purchases that areover $100 US). The targeting merchant (m) 104 may also specify theannouncement recipient to be the consumer (c) 102 that has engaged inthe transaction with the surrogate merchant (m) 104 and/or the targetingmerchant (m) 104. An algorithmic rule can be created based on theannouncement condition of the targeting merchant (m) 104.

The host (h) 106 may determine if the announcement condition issatisfied by use of hardware executing an algorithm or software thatdetermines if a transaction has occurred with the surrogate merchant (m)104. For example, the transaction handler (th) 206 may determine if theannouncement condition is satisfied by using an algorithm todistinguished the transaction of the surrogate merchant (m) 104 fromamong the plurality of received transactions and to analyze thecorresponding received transaction information, such as by comparing thecorresponding received transaction information with the data stored inthe DB 110. For example, the transaction handler (th) 206 may executethe algorithm that finds matches between the merchant identifier of themerchant (m) 104 engaged in the distinguished transaction and themerchant identifier of the surrogate merchant (m) 104 selected by thetargeting merchant (m) 104.

As stated previously, the match may be of respective merchant categoriesderived from the corresponding merchant identifiers. For example, thetransaction handler (th) 206 may use the merchant identifier of themerchant (m) 104 engaged in the corresponding transaction to determine acategory of the respective merchant (m) 104 (e.g., clothing retailer).The determined category can be compared with the category of thesurrogate merchant (m) 104 selected by the targeting merchant (m) 104(e.g., women's clothing retailer) to find a match. The matching does nothave to be exact. Rather, the algorithm may have matching rules thatdictate the degree to which comparisons are deemed to be a match.Thereafter, if a match is deemed to exist, the announcement condition isconsidered satisfied and the announcement is sent to the announcementrecipient.

To illustrate, the targeting merchant (m) 104 may be a Target® store andthe surrogate merchant (m) 104 may be a Wal-Mart® store, a competitor ofthe Target® store. When the consumer (1) 102, Sally Smith, makes apurchase at the Wal-Mart® store, the transaction handler (th) 206receives the transaction information, routes the purchase to thecorresponding issuer (i) 202 of the account of Sally Smith, uses themerchant identifier in the transaction to match the Wal-Mart® store withthe surrogate merchant (m) 104 in the announcement program, and sendsthe announcement to the Target® store, such as, “Sally Smith just boughta pair of scissors at the Wal-Mart® store.” Thereafter, the consumer (c)102, Sally Smith, may receive this text message on her cellulartelephone: “scissors are on sale at Target for $20 US.”

As stated previously, the surrogate merchant (m) 104 may be one of themerchants 104 whose transactions occur within a temporal proximity withthose of the targeting merchant (m) 104. The transaction information forthe plurality of transactions between the merchants 104 and theconsumers 102 may indicate that the consumers 102 that shop with thesurrogate merchant (m) 104 also tend to shop with the targeting merchant(m) 104 within a window of time from the purchase at the surrogatemerchant (m) 104. For example, those consumers 102 that engage in thetransactions upon corresponding accounts with a Neiman Marcus® store ina mall also tend to purchase coffee about an hour later from theStarbucks® store in the mall using the same respective account. Statedotherwise, the consumer may have made a purchase in the past from asurrogate merchant and, within a window of time, made another purchasefrom a targeting merchant. As such, the targeting merchant will want tosend its announcement to the consumer within the same window of time(e.g., between the minimum and maximum windows of time) after theconsumer makes a subsequent purchase from the surrogate merchant. Assuch, the targeting merchant is acting on the believe that itsannouncement will cause the consumer to repeat prior behavior by makingyet another purchase at the targeting merchant within the same window oftime after the subsequent purchase from the surrogate merchant.Satisfaction of the announcement condition may include passage ofapproximately the window of time prior to sending the announcement.Similarly, a history of other consumers making chronologicallysequential purchases at a surrogate merchant and a targeting merchantcan be used to derive a minimum and maximum window of time during whichan announcement from the targeting merchant should be sent to anyconsumer detected to be proximal the surrogate merchant such that thedetected consumer will be most likely to act upon the receivedannouncement.

The announcement can be sent to a point of service terminal of thesurrogate merchant, to a portable consumer device co-located with theconsumer, or to both.

In one implementation, the corresponding account identifiers of theconsumers 102 are used to analyze temporal or sequential shopping trendsof the consumers 102 based on the data in the DB 110 and/or data in thereceived transaction information (e.g., data that is received inreal-time). The determined shopping trend can then guide theannouncement condition. For example, the transaction handler (th) 206may determine that, within an average of about two hours, 51% of theaccount identifiers used in the transactions with the Neiman Marcus®store are also used for the transactions with the Starbucks® store.Therefore, announcements can be sent to those consumers 102 that havealready shopped with either Neiman Marcus or Starbucks. Offer made inthe announcements will be more likely to be effective if they are sentwithin the two hour window of time described above.

The window of time may be based on the purchasing behavior of a singleconsumer (1) 102 or on a plurality of the consumers 102. For example, atime lapse can be determined for a sequence of transactions of theconsumer (1) 102 with each of the surrogate merchant (1) 104 and thetargeting merchant (2) 104. The determined time lapse can then beconsidered the window of time. Alternatively, a corresponding time lapsecan be calculated for each of the plurality of the consumers 102 andalgorithmically combined to determine the window of time. For example,the window of time may be the average of the three time lapses for threeconsumers (c+1, c+2, c+3) 102 (e.g., 1.0 hour, 1.5 hours, and 2hours=1.5 hours).

The announcement may be sent to the announcement recipient within thetemporal proximity (e.g., the window of time) after the satisfaction ofthe announcement condition, which is the receipt of a subsequenttransaction of the consumer (c) 102 with the surrogate merchant (m) 104in this example. For example, the transaction handler (th) 206 maycalculate the window of time based on the past transactions of theconsumer (1) 102 with each of the surrogate and the targeting merchants(m) 104 to be one hour. The transaction handler (th) 206 may receive asubsequent authorization request addressed from the surrogate merchant(m) 104. The transaction handler (th) 206 may determine that theannouncement condition is satisfied and send the announcement to theannouncement recipient within the hour after receiving the subsequentauthorization request. In this manner, the announcement, such as acoupon, can be sent to the consumer (c) 102 at an opportune time. Forexample, the transaction information of Sally Smith may show that, forabout 70% of the time, Sally Smith purchases a coffee at the Starbucks®store within a hour of shopping at the Neiman Marcus® store. The nexttime Sally Smith makes a purchase at the Neiman Marcus® store, SallySmith may receive a Starbucks® coupon, or that of a Starbuck'scompetitor, within an hour of shopping at the Neiman Marcus® store.Sally Smith may receive the Starbucks® coupon nearly instantaneously,such as on the back of the receipt of the subsequent transaction withthe Neiman Marcus® store. Similarly, the Starbucks® coupon may berendering on the PCD of Sally Smith as she is walking out of, andtoward, the Starbucks® store, for example.

The temporal proximity may be between the utilization of the resourcesof the surrogate merchant (m) 104 and the transaction of the targetingmerchant (m) 104. To illustrate, the transaction handler (th) 206 maydetermine, based on the data stored in the DB 110, that 80% of theconsumers 102 that purchase a Mediterranean cruise trip tend to shop atharbor stores after commencement of the Mediterranean cruise trip. Thetransaction handler (th) 206 may communicate the trend analysis to thetargeting merchant (m) 104. The targeting merchant (m) 104 may thenspecify the announcement condition based on the received trend analysis.For example, the targeting merchant (m) 104 may specify the announcementcondition as “if the consumer (c) 102 has purchased a ticket on aMediterranean cruise, then send an announcement to the consumer (c) 102on the date that the cruise line docks at the harbor near the targetingmerchant (m) 104” (the step 302). The transaction handler (th) 206 mayreceive the transaction information indicating that a targeted consumer(c) 102 has purchased a ticket on a Mediterranean cruise that willcommence in July of 2008 (the step 304). The transaction handler (th)206 may further use the data stored in the DB 110 to determine that theconsumers 102 that purchased Mediterranean cruises booked for July 1sttend to purchase resources from harbor stores located in the spatialzone on July 15th (the step 306). The transaction handler (th) 206 maysend the announcement to the targeted consumer (c) 102 on Jul. 15, 2008(the step 306 and the step 312).

In yet another example, the announcement condition may be based on thereal time spatial proximity of the consumer (c) 102 to the location ofthe surrogate merchant (m) 104. In the example above, the surrogatemerchant (m) 104 may be the Neiman Marcus® store but the sending of theannouncement may be triggered by the presence of the consumer (c) 102near the Neiman Marcus® store; therefore, a transaction with the NeimanMarcus® store is not necessary. The presence of the consumer (c) 102 maybe determined via a signal received from a co-located PCD, as previouslydescribed. Therefore, if the determined shopping trend shows that mostof the consumers 102 that shop at the Neiman Marcus® store also tend toshop at the Starbucks® store, then the consumer (c) 102 that is near theNeiman Marcus® store may receive the Starbucks® coupon, or that of anidentified competitor, even without purchasing resources at the NeimanMarcus® store. Therefore, the consumer (c) 102 need not engage in thesubsequent transaction with the Neiman Marcus® store in order to triggerthe receipt of the announcement containing the coupon of the targetingmerchant (m) 104.

Alternatively, or in combination, the criterion of the announcementcondition may be based on other shopping behaviors, such as: arelationship between the resources purchased from the surrogate merchant(m) 104 and the resources offered by the targeting merchant (m) 104(e.g., shoes and socks, iPod® music player and iTunes® digital music,hamburger at a supermarket and George Forman® grill at a nearby retailappliance store); a relationship between the surrogate merchants 104 andthe targeting merchant (m) 104 (e.g. a loyalty program giving points forpurchases with either of two merchants (m+1, M+2) 104); or arelationship between consumers 102 (e.g., similar purchasing behaviorsamong members of a household or friends). Other criterion based onpurchasing behaviors are also applicable.

In some implementations, the targeting merchant (1) 104 may pay a fee tothe surrogate merchant (2) 104 for information about the transactionswith the targeting merchant (1) 104 that arise as a result of theannouncement being sent to the consumer (c) 102. For example, both thesurrogate merchant (2) 104 and the targeting merchant (1) 104 mayparticipate in the announcement program wherein each gives consent tothe host (h) 106 to the use the transaction information corresponding tothe respective merchant (m+1, m+2) 104 in the announcement program.Thereafter, if the consumer (c) 102 that received the announcementengages in the transaction with the targeting merchant (1) 104, then thetargeting merchant (1) 104 would pay a fee to the surrogate merchant (2)104 (2% of the purchase price).

Announcement About a Targeted Merchant Example

Typically, the consumer (c) 102 has access to little information aboutpast sales of the merchant (m) 104, although the consumer (c) 102 mayknow the name and location (physical address or URL address) of themerchant (m) 104 and a current advertised price for a particularresource that is sold by the merchant (m) 104. Typically, the consumer(c) 102 does not have access to merchant information about the merchant(m) 104, such as: a past price of the particular resource, a salesvolume of the merchant (m) 104 over a period of time, the frequency ofthe transactions with the merchant (m) 104 for the particular resource,whether a particular one of the consumers 102 (e.g., an identifiedfriend, relative, or celebrity) has engaged in the transaction with themerchant (m) 104. In some instances, the merchant (m) 104 may advertiseportions of a merchant information, such as the past price, but theconsumer (c) 102 has no direct way to confirm the accuracy of theadvertisement. For example, the merchant (m) 104 may advertise thatPrada® hand bags were sold for $5000 US last week but they are on salefor $100 US this week. Currently, the consumer (c) 102 is not able toverify that the Prada® hand bags were, in fact, sold at the store of themerchant (m) 104 for $5000 US last week.

In one implementation, a shopper (e.g., the consumer (c) 102) receivesan announcement, which includes information about past transactions ofmerchant (m) 104. An announcement distributor may have a shopperannouncement program wherein shoppers that are eligible as announcementrecipients can receive information about the past transactions of themerchant (m) 104.

The announcement distributor, the merchant (m) 104, or the announcementrecipient may specify the content of the announcement (the step 308).For example, the merchant (m) 104 may: delineate the types of merchantinformation about the merchant (m) 104 that the announcement distributormay distribute to the announcement recipients. To illustrate, themerchant (m) 104 may delineate that the announcement content be limitedto the transaction information of the merchant (m) 104 for resourceshaving a high volume of sales over the past three months. The shopperinterested in the shopper announcement program may pay a different feefor various levels of access to the merchant information.

Consumer (c) 102 may transmit a query (i.e., a request) to anannouncement distributor, such as a transmission requesting informationabout merchant (m) 104 or multiple merchants 104. The announcementdistributor may receive the query and determine if the announcementcondition is satisfied (step 306 in FIG. 3), for example, bydetermining: (i) that consumer (c) 102 is one of the shoppers registeredfor the shopper announcement program; or (ii) that the query wassubmitted to the announcement distributor within the hours of operationof the announcement program. The announcement distributor may furtherdetermine if it has the proper authority or required consent(s) todistribute the announcement to the shopper by, for example, determiningif local laws allow for distribution of the merchant information (thestep 308). After the announcement condition is determined to besatisfied (the step 306), the announcement distributor may facilitatethe delivery of the announcement to the shopper, such as by forming atransmission, addressed to the shopper and including a response to thequery (the step 312).

In one implementation, the response to the request (e.g., query) of theshopper may be based on data stored in the DB 110 or on transactioninformation as the transactions are being processed in the paymentprocessing system 200. To illustrate, consumer (c) 102, when determinedto be present in a particular spatial zone, may ask transaction handler(th) 206 to transmit the price of Prada® hand bags that have been soldwithin the past week at stores located in the spatial zone, such asthose sold by a Neiman Marcus® store located in the spatial zone. Thetransaction handler (th) 206 may determine that the announcementcondition is satisfied by determining if the consumer (c) 102 is aneligible announcement recipient in the shopper announcement program (thestep 306). Thereafter, the transaction handler (th) 206 may prepare thecontent of the announcement by: determining a merchant identifier forthe Neiman Marcus® store located in the spatial zone; accessing the DB110 to retrieve the merchant information about the Neiman Marcus® storethat is located in the spatial zone; and determining, from the retrievedmerchant information, the price of all Prada® hand bags sold at theNeiman Marcus® store in the past week. The transaction handler (th) 206may, in turn, form the announcement for transmission, including thedetermined price of the Prada® hand bags sold at the Neiman Marcus®store in the past week. Alternatively, or in a combination of theforgoing, the transaction handler (th) 206 may: determine which storesare located in the spatial zone (e.g. by comparing the spatial zone tothe known locations of a plurality of the merchants 104) and determinethe price of the Prada® hand bags sold within the past week at each ofthe stores located in the spatial zone. The transaction handler (th) 206may, in turn, respond to the shopper by sending the announcement to theshopper who had made the request (the step 312).

The announcement system 100 may be used for any number of shopperrequests. Examples of requests may include: a price paid for a resource;a confirmation that a current advertised price for the resource is lessthan the price paid for the resource in a past transaction; an averagesales volume of each of two adjacent stores, such as when the shopper islooking to make a purchase at one of the adjacent stores; a frequency ofsale of a specified resource (e.g., to determine how rare theavailability of the resource may be); a degree of fluctuation of pricesat the merchant (m) 104 (e.g., to determine the likelihood that aresource will be at a different price in the near future); a frequencyof co-purchasing of two resources at the merchant (m) 104 (e.g., todetermine if one resource is typically purchased with the otherresource); a rate at which resources are returned to the merchant (m)104 (e.g., to determine the quality of the resources being sold at themerchant (m) 104); a transaction that used a loyalty redemption for thepurchase of a resource from merchant (m) 104 or of loyalty awards (e.g.,to determine if merchant (m) 104 accepts points as currency for apurchase or to determine if transactions with the merchant (m) 104 haveresulted in loyalty points that the consumer (c) 102 may also beeligible for); or a query asking if a specified shopper has engaged in atransaction with the merchant (m) 104 in the past (e.g., to determine ifa friend likes to shop at the merchant (m) 104 or whether a celebrityfrequents a store of the merchant (m) 104).

Announcement About Member Consumer Transactions Examples

In these examples, a member consumer (e.g., the consumers 102) of aconsumer group can be an announcement recipient who will receive anannouncement containing data about past transactions of other memberconsumers in the consumer group even if the announcement recipient isnot an account holder having an account upon which any of those pasttransactions was conducted. For example, a first member consumer mayreceive the transaction information of a second member consumer even ifthe first member consumer is not an account holder of the account of thesecond member consumer. In summary, the member consumers in the consumergroup agree to share at least portions of their respective transactionhistories with one another.

The member consumers can delineate the types of information that can beshared. For example, the member consumers may limit access of othermember consumers to data about the manufacturers of the resources thatthey purchased or to the purchase prices they paid for the resourcesthey purchased. Moreover, each member consumer may customize a type oftheir purchasing information that they are willing to share according toa type of member consumer in the consumer group. For instance, a memberconsumer can specify other member consumers in the consumer group asbeing a family member, a friend, or a non-acquaintance. To illustrate,if a member consumer identifies three other member consumers as beingtwo sisters and a friend, then the two sisters will have greater accessto the member consumer's transaction information than would the friend.For example, the two sisters may each receive an announcement as to thename brand, manufacturer, and price of a resource purchased by theconsumer member, whereas the friend would receive an announcementcontaining only the manufacturer's name of the purchased resource.

Examples illustrating the purpose and usefulness of receivingannouncements about past and present transactions of the memberconsumers in a consumer group include: receiving ads or offers forresources that are likely to be of interest to consumers (c) 102 in theconsumer group; receiving announcements that recommend a resource or amerchant (m) 104 to other member consumers; receiving an announcementcontaining a purchase “wish list” of a member consumer; receiving anoffers for a resource at a purchase price that is made available to anyother member consumer in the consumer group; receiving an announcementabout a gift concierge service available to the consumer group;receiving an announcement that one member consumer can pay for part of apurchase by another member consumer; receiving an announcement as that acelebrity has endorsed a resource, where the announcement can be sent orreceived by one or more member consumers, a merchant (m) 104, an issuer(i) 202, an acquirer (q) 204, a transaction handler (th) 206, or anagent of any of the foregoing.

In one implementation, a request can be received from a member consumerabout transactions upon accounts of other member consumer(s), where thequery will be understood by an announcement distributor, or agentthereof, to be a criterion of an announcement condition the satisfactionof which will trigger an announcement being sent to the requestingmember consumer. For example, the announcement sent to member consumersmay include data such as: the identity of one of the member consumers;the merchant identifier of the merchant (m) 104 that sold a specifiedresource to one of the member consumers; an offer of the merchant (m)104 to one of the member consumers; an average spend of one of themember consumers; a resource identifier of one of the resourcespurchased in the past by one of the member consumers; the resourceidentifier of at least one resource that none of the member consumershas purchased within a specified window of time; the resource identifierof at least one resource that is predicted to be of interest to at leastone of the member consumers based on the resources purchased in the pastby the member consumers; the resource identifier of at least oneresource within a pre-selected resource set including resources ofinterest to the member consumers; or a manufacturer identifier of atleast one resource purchased by one of the member consumers.

In another implementation, an announcement condition may be based oncriteria selected by the member consumers, such as the purchase of aresource that is of interest to at least one of the member consumers.The member consumers may have a set of resources (“resource set”) thatis of interest to the member consumers. The announcement condition maybe a change that occurs to the resource set as member consumers engagein transactions for the resources in the resource set with variousmerchants 104, such as a shopping “wishlist” that is tracked across themerchants 104. In another example, the member consumers may receive theannouncement when one of the member consumers is present in a particularspatial zone, the announcement include one or more merchants 104 thatare in that zone and can engage in a transaction for a resource that isin the resource set.

Referring to FIG. 5, a flowchart depicts an exemplary method 500 fornotifying a member consumer of transactions (“purchases”) made by othermember consumers in a consumer group from a plurality of merchants 104.At a step 502, data specifying the consumer group is received. The dataspecifying the consumer group may include corresponding consumeridentifiers usable to distinguish or identify the respective memberconsumers from other consumers 102 within the payment processing system200. For example, the consumer identifier may be a legal name or otherdistinguishing title of the member consumer. Alternatively, or incombination of the foregoing, the consumer identifier may be: an accountnumber of an account of consumer (c) 102 who is also a member consumerin the consumer group; a telephone number of the member consumer; arandom number assigned to the member consumer; a Personal IdentificationNumber (PIN); or a digital recording of a voice of the member consumerfrom which the member consumer can be identified. Other forms of theconsumer identifier, as are known by those of ordinary skill in therelevant art, can also suffice to distinguish the member consumer fromamong the other consumers 102 that are, or are not, in the consumergroup.

The consumer (c) 102 may make a selection from among other memberconsumers in a consumer group to form a subgroup. For example, consumer(c) 102, Sally Smith, may access an Internet website via a web enabledcellular telephone. Sally Smith may enter consumer group data during aninteractive session with the website wherein Sally Smith selects threefriends (consumer (c+1, c+2, c+3) 102) with whom she wants to share dataabout her transactions within the payment processing system 200. To makeselections, consumer (c) 102 may have access through the website toconsumer group data that may include data about the member consumerssuch as: a name of the member consumer, a consumer identifier for eachmember consumer, an account identifier of an account of a memberconsumer, an demographic of a member consumer, or the marital status ofa member consumer. Once entered, the member consumer data may be storedin the DB 110 in association with the consumer group. Optionally, eachof the friends may receive a transmission seeking their respectiveconsents to be one of the member consumers or requesting otherinformation from the member consumers, such as their account identifier.

At a step 504, a resource set is determined. This resource set mayinclude the resources that are of interest to at least one memberconsumer in the consumer group. The resource set can be specified orpredicted. In one implementation, at least one of the member consumersspecifies at least one of the resources of interest. To illustrate,Sally Smith may specify an interest in a pair of Manolo® shoes and anIBM Thinkpad® computer, each of which is included in a resource setstored in the DB 110 in association with the consumer group. Moreover,any of Sally's three specified friends may log onto the website linkedto the DB 110 and further add or delete resources in the resource set.For example, one of Sally's friends may add peaches to the resource set.Therefore, the composition of resources in the resource set may benegotiated among the member consumers, wherein some member consumerspropose that a resource be included in the resource set while othersrespond to the proposal until an agreement is reached as to a finalcomposition of resources in the resource set.

Alternatively, or in a combination of the foregoing, the resource setmay be predicted based on the past transaction histories of each of themember consumers. In one implementation, the transaction handler (th)206 uses an algorithm to determine transaction trends within thetransaction histories of corresponding member consumers to predict theresource set. For example, the transaction history of the accounts ofSally Smith and her three (3) friends may show a trend of conductingtransactions with Macy's® department stores. Consequently, the resourceset may include the predicted trend: “Macy's® department store.”

If the announcement condition is based on receiving a transaction of oneof the member consumers for the purchase of a resource in the resourceset, then the method 500 moves from the step 504 to a step 604 in FIG.6. Alternatively, or in a combination of the forgoing, if theannouncement condition is based on the presence of the member consumerin a particular spatial zone, the method 500 moves from a step 504 to astep 702 in FIG. 7.

At the step 604, the transaction information is received about thetransactions between the merchants 104 and the consumers 102, which mayinclude the member consumers. As previously described, the transactioninformation may include a resource identifier (e.g., Universal ProductCode (UPC), Stock Keeping Unit (SKU) or resource description) and theconsumer identifier of the corresponding consumer (c) 102.

At a step 606, the transactions of the member consumers aredistinguished from among the transactions of the plurality of theconsumers 102. For example, the consumer identifier in the transactioninformation is compared with the corresponding consumer identifier ofthe member consumers to find a match. In the above illustration, SallySmith may have associated a first account number of her account with theconsumer group in which is she is one of the member consumers. WhenSally Smith engages in the transaction upon that account, the merchant(m) 104 may submit an authorization request including the first accountnumber. The transaction handler (th) 206 may receive the authorizationrequest within the payment processing system 200. The transactionhandler (th) 206 may, in turn, match the first account number receivedin the authorization request with the first account number stored in theDB 110 in association with Sally Smith as one of the member consumers ofthe consumer group. At a step 608, the resources purchased by memberconsumers are compared to the resources in the resource set to determinea match. For example, the transaction handler (th) 206 may match dataabout the resource purchased in the received authorization request withthe resources in the resource set.

Not all transactions within the payment processing system 200 of themember consumers need to be compared against the resource set. Themember consumers may provide to the host (h) 106 an inclusion indicator.The host (h) 106 can use this inclusion indicator to select thosetransactions of member consumers that should be compared against theresource set. For example, the member consumer may set up rules thatdenote which of their transactions in the payment processing system 200should be compared with data associated with the consumer group. Toillustrate, the profile associated with the consumer group may indicatethat only transactions with specified merchants 104 should be comparedagainst the resource set, or that only transactions that are conductedon specified accounts should be compared against the resource set. Othermeans for distinguishing the transactions of the member consumers bycomparing data associated with the consumer group include: matching aconsumer group code (e.g., PIN) that the member consumer enters duringthe transaction with the consumer group code associated with theconsumer group in the DB 110; using a query response session during thetransaction to obtain from the member consumer information to becompared to data associates with the consumer group; or providingconsumer members of the consumer group with a pseudo account number foruse in their transactions. For example, the member consumer may enter aspecial code into a Point of Service terminal (POS) of the merchant (m)104 during a transaction that indicates that information obtained fromthe transaction should be compared to the data associated with theconsumer group.

The pseudo account number may be linked with respective accounts of eachmember consumer within the payment processing system 200. For example,each of the member consumers may receive a corresponding PCD specific tothe consumer group, such as a payment card that is associated with orotherwise identifies the pseudo account number. When the member consumerconducts a transaction on the pseudo account number, the transaction issent to the transaction handler (th) 206 that recognizes the pseudoaccount number, routes the transaction to the corresponding account ofthe member consumer that is linked to the pseudo account number, andcompares data from the transaction with the data associated with theconsumer group. Other techniques effective to distinguish thetransactions of the member consumers are also contemplated for use inthe disclosed implementations.

At a step 610, a notice function is performed if the resources purchasedmatch the resources in the resource set. The notice function may includesending the announcement to the member consumer. The announcement mayinclude information such as: a purchase price of the matched resource; atime that the matched resource was purchased; the consumer identifier(e.g., a name of the member consumer that purchased the matchedresource); a date that the matched resource was purchased; a resourceidentifier of the matched resource; a manufacturer identifier of thematched resource; a message from one of the member consumers;information about a location of one of the member consumers; an offer ofthe merchant (m) 104 for the resource sold to one of the memberconsumers; an average purchase amount of one of the resources purchasedby the member consumers; the resource identifier of a resource that noneof the member consumers has purchased within a specified window of time;the resource identifier of one of the resources in the predicted orselected resource set; or an alert that payment processing system 200has received an authorization request a transaction to purchase of oneof the resources of interest. To illustrate, if Sally Smith purchasesthe peaches, which resource is matched in the resource set, then theannouncement may be sent to one of her three friends with the includedtext: “The peaches from your resource set have just been purchased.”

The resource set may be changed or updated based on the comparisonbetween the resources in the resource set and the resources purchased bythe member consumers. For example, resources in the resource set may beremoved as member consumers purchase them or added as the resource setis predicted based on the transaction history of the member consumers.For example, if a resource set consists of mutually exclusive weddinggifts to be purchased by member consumers in a consumer group, eachpurchase of each gift removes a resource in the resource set until allof the wedding gifts have been purchased and the resource set is devoidof resources.

Each member consumer may receive an announcement that includesinformation about the resource set that is of interest specifically tothem. In one implementation, a subset of the predicted resource set isdetermined and included in the announcement to a first member consumer.The subset may be based on the transaction history of the first memberconsumer. For example, the resource set may include a Rolex® watch, aCadillac® vehicle, peaches, and an Apple® iPod® music player. Thetransaction history of the first member consumer, Sally Smith, may showthat Sally Smith typically makes purchases in a range of $1 US to $1000US. Therefore, the announcement sent to Sally Smith may only includeinformation about the resources that have a purchase price in thisrange, such as the peaches and the Apple® iPod® music player. In anotherexample, if the transaction history for Sally shows that she has alreadybought the resource in the resource set, she will not receive theannouncement about that resource. For example, if the resource setincludes a Spaghetti lunch at Cibo™ restaurant, but the transactionhistory of Sally Smith shows that Sally Smith has already eaten therethis week, then Sally Smith won't receive the announcement including acoupon for the Spaghetti lunch at Cibo™ restaurant, while the othermember consumers may receive the coupon. Similarly, individual memberconsumers can opt-in or out of receiving selected announcements.

In another implementation, the announcement condition may be based onthe presence of the member consumer in a specified spatial zone, inwhich case, the method 500 moves from a step 504 to a step 702 in FIG.7. At a step 704, data usable to determine a location of a firstconsumer (c) 102 is received. As previously described, a co-located PCDcan transmit information from which a location of the consumer (c) 102to the host (h) 106. At a step 706, a determination is made as towhether the first consumer (c) 102 is one of the member consumers of theconsumer group. For example, if the received data in the step 704includes the consumer identifier of the first consumer (c) 102 (e.g., anaccount number or telephone number associated with the first consumer(c) 102), then the received consumer identifier is compared against theconsumer identifiers stored in the DB 110 in association with theconsumer group.

At a step 708, the location of the first consumer (c) 102 is determinedfrom the transmitted information. For example, the host (h) 106 (e.g.,the transaction handler (th) 206) may receive a transmission thatincludes GPS or local area network coordinates from which the locationof the first consumer (c) 102 can be determined. The host (h) 106, maytranslate the coordinates into a physical address, such as a streetaddress. At a step 710, the determined location of the first consumer ismatched with the zone of interest. For example, the determined streetaddress of the first consumer (c) 102 may be compared to the geographicboundaries of the spatial zone to determine if the first consumer (c)102 is located within the spatial zone.

At a step 712, a notice function is performed if the determined locationof the first consumer (c) 102 matches the zone of interest. The noticefunction may including forming the announcement for delivery to one ofthe member consumers including information about potential purchasingannouncement opportunities. For example, Sally Smith is determined to bein the spatial zone that includes the merchant (m) 104 who can sell theIBM ThinkPad® computer which is one of the resources in the resourceset. The notice function may be a transmission of a message to SallySmith's cellular telephone that the merchant (m) 104 is selling the IBMThinkPad® computer. Alternatively, or in combination, one of Sally'sfriends in the consumer group may receive the announcement indicatingthat Sally is near the merchant (m) 104 who is sells the IBM ThinkPad®computer. Thereafter, one of her friends may call Sally Smith to pass onthe information about the merchant (m) 104.

Other implementations of the “Announcement About Member ConsumerTransactions Examples” are described below including: (a) Wishlist, (b)Common Purchase Price (c) Automated Gift Concierge, (d) Pooled Money,and (e) Celebrity Endorsement.

(a) Wishlist

The announcement system 100 may be used to create a wishlist (e.g.,resource set) of resources that the consumer (c) 102 is interested in.The consumer (c) 102 can create a consumer group (the step 502),including denoting the member consumers in the consumer group. Each ofthe member consumers may have access to the wishlist which includesresources that may be purchased from any of a number of the merchants104 (the step 504). The wishlist is edited or updated as the memberconsumers make purchases of resources on the wish list using any of anumber of the accounts that are associated with the consumer group. Forexample, the wishlist may include a Microsoft® Xbox and a toy train. Thetransaction handler (th) 206 may receive a transaction from a firstmerchant (m) 104 for the Microsoft® Xbox, where the transaction wasconducted upon one of the accounts associated with the consumer group(the step 604). The transaction handler (th) 206 may: identify theMicrosoft® Xbox as one of the resources in the resource set (the step608), remove the Microsoft® Xbox from the wishlist and inform the memberconsumers that the Microsoft® Xbox is no longer on the wishlist (thestep 610). Similarly, if one of the member consumers is determined to benear a toy shop selling toy trains (the steps 704, 706, 708, and 710),the transaction handler (th) 206 can facilitate the delivery of a noticeto the member consumer near the toy shop that the toy train may bepurchased at the toy shop (the step 712).

(b) Common Purchase Price

The announcement system 100 may be used to offer resources to the memberconsumer at a purchase price that is similar to the purchase price paidby another member consumer. Here, the member consumers may create theresource set that includes resources that a plurality of the memberconsumers are interested in purchasing (the steps 502 and 504). Theannouncement condition can be selected to be the purchase of one of theresources in the resource set by one of the member consumers. The host(h) 106 may receive the plurality of transactions (the step 604) anddistinguish the transactions of the member consumer(s) with the merchant(m) 104 for the resource in the resource set (the steps 606, and 608)),and facilitate the sending of the announcement to the other memberconsumers (the step 610). The announcement may include information suchas the purchase price of the purchased resource, the name of the memberconsumer that purchased the resource, or a description of the merchant(m) 104 that sold the resource to the member consumer.

The announcement may include an offer of the merchant (m) 104 for theresource at a discount price that matches the purchase price of thedistinguished transaction. In this manner, member consumers can receivethe same deal or a better deal than those received by the other memberconsumers in the consumer group. The offer may be tailored to the memberconsumer, such as “Your friend just bought a Super Mario® Wii® computergame for $100 US. We can give you the same deal!”

(c) Automated Gift Concierge

The announcement system 100 may provide a gift concierge function to themember consumers. For example, three of consumers 102 may create aconsumer group (the step 502) wherein the member consumers consent tosharing their respective transaction information with one another. Oneof the three member consumers, such as Sally Smith, may wish to purchasea gift for another of the three member consumers 102 (“friend”). SallySmith may transmit an inquiry to the host (h) 106 (e.g., the transactionhandler (th) 206) requesting information about the past shopping habitsof her friend. For example, Sally Smith may request information aboutthe resources that her friend bought, merchants 104 that her friend haspurchased from, or the manufacturers of the resources that her friendtypically buys (e.g., the step 504). To illustrate, Sally Smith mayinquire “What clothing designer does my friend typically use?” or “Hasmy friend ever purchased music from iTunes® music service in the past?”or “Does my friend like Sears® products?” Thereafter, the host (h) 106may: search the transaction information stored in the DB 110 to locatethe transactions of her friend (the steps 604, 606, and 608) and thenfacilitate the electronic transmission to Sally Smith (the step 610) ofthe announcement that includes the information that Sally requested.

Alternatively, or in a combination of the forgoing, Sally Smith mayreceive an unsolicited announcement indicating that her friend is makinga purchase. For example, Sally Smith may receive a message on hercellular telephone that the friend is about to purchase a cup of coffee.This may be initiated, for instance, by the transaction handler (th) 206receiving an authorization request for her friend's purchase of coffeeupon her friend's account. The transaction handler (th) 206 may:determine that the friend is one of the member consumers of the consumergroup that includes Sally Smith, and initiate the transmission of themessage that arrives at Sally's cellular telephone to inform Sally Smiththat her friend is in the coffee shop. Again, such an announcement wouldbe triggered by the satisfaction of predetermined announcementconditions that are associated with the consumer group. Sally Smith maythen offer, by use of her cellular telephone, to pay for her friend'scoffee purchase by sending a transmission to the payment processingsystem 200 (e.g., the transaction handler (th) 206) consenting to makethe coffee purchase payable upon the account of Sally Smith. Sally Smithmay also request that an electronic message be sent indicating “This oneis on me, Sally.” In turn, the transaction handler (th) 206 may send ane-mail message to the portable consumer device of her friend thatincludes Sally's message.

(d) Pooled Currency

In another implementation the member consumers may wish to make a grouppurchase wherein a resource is purchased with currency from a pluralityof corresponding accounts of the member consumers as partial paymenttoward the group purchase. The partial payments may be processedseparately wherein each partial payment is authorized, cleared, andsettled individually within the payment processing system 200.Alternatively, or in a combination of the forgoing, the currency may befirst pooled together in a mutual account and the transaction for theresource then processed as payable upon the mutual account.

To illustrate, the consumer group may be created. The member consumersin the consumer group may wish to purchase a “gift” for a friend that isnot in the consumer group, wherein the resource set is “gift.” The“gift” may be identified, such as a Mont Blanc® pen for $500 US frommerchant (1) 104. Alternatively, the gift may be unidentified. Themember consumers may each submit a corresponding request to thetransaction handler (th) 206 requesting that currency (e.g., money orloyalty points) be transferred from their respective account as partialpayment towards the gift. The request may include the account identifierof their account and an amount of the currency to transfer as thepartial payment. The transaction handler (th) 206 may process eachpartial payment individually or pool the currency together in a mutualaccount prior to processing the transaction(s) for the gift. The memberconsumers may receive announcements including the status of the partialpayments, such as an indication of how much more currency is needed inorder to cover the cost of the gift.

In one implementation, the transaction handler (th) 206 processes thepartial payments individually. The transaction handler (th) 206 maysubmit each partial payment authorization request individually to eachrespective issuer (i) 202 of the corresponding accounts of the memberconsumers. Thereafter, each of the partial payments may be cleared andsettled such that the merchant (1) 104 selling the gift receives eachpartial payment for the gift from each of the corresponding accounts.The transaction handler (th) 206 may, but need not, first store theinformation in each request until there is enough currency in therequests to cover the purchase price of an identified gift. Once thereis enough currency in the requests to cover the cost of the gift, thetransaction handler (th) 206 may process each of the partial paymentsfor corresponding authorizations, clearing, and settlements.

In another implementation, the member consumers may have access to amutual account in which the currency for the gift can first be pooled.The transaction handler (th) 206 may: receive the requests for thepartial payments; request the corresponding issuers (i) 202 of themember consumers to transfer the amount of the partial payment to themutual account (e.g., authorize, clear, and settle a transfer of thefunds to the mutual account) such that the mutual account carries abalance including the sum of the currency amounts of the partialpayments. The transaction handler (th) 206 may then process atransaction with the merchant (m) 104 selling the gift payable upon themutual account (e.g., the transaction with the merchant (m) 104 isauthorized, cleared, and settled upon the mutual account).

To illustrate, the member consumers may be co-workers in an office. Eachco-worker may wish to contribute money toward the purchase of a gift fortheir boss worth $30 US. Each member consumer may log onto a websitewherein the member consumers enter a request to transfer money from acorresponding identified account of the co-worker (e.g., $5 US from afirst co-worker, $10 US from a second co-worker, and $15 US from a thirdco-worker) as partial payment toward the gift. If the merchant (1) 104is also identified, the transaction handler (th) 206 may receive therequests and send an authorization request to each respective issuer (i)202 of the corresponding identified accounts to authorize eachrespective partial payment. If the merchant (1) 104 is not identified,the transaction handler (th) 206 may either store the respectiverequests in the DB 110 until such time that the merchant (1) 104 isidentified, or send instructions to each respective issuer (i) 202 ofthe corresponding identified accounts to transfer funds corresponding tothe respective partial payment to the mutual account. The mutual accountcan hold the transferred money until such time that the transaction forthe gift is conducted upon the mutual account.

The member consumers may receive the announcement about the pooledcurrency. For example, the member consumers may receive the announcementincluding information about how much money has been collected toward thegift and how much money still remains to be collected. In anotherexample, the member consumers may receive the announcement includinginformation about the gift that was bought with the pooled currency. Inyet another example, the gift recipient may receive the gift (e.g., aprepaid card loaded with the pooled currency) along with a note fromeach of the member consumers that made a partial payment toward thegift.

(d) Celebrity Endorsement

The member consumers need not know each other personally. In oneimplementation, the member consumers in the consumer group may includean endorser (e.g., a celebrity endorser that shops with merchants 104),wherein the member consumers are interested in knowing about thepurchases of the endorser at these merchants. For example, a celebrityendorser may engage in a contract with an endorsee, wherein thecelebrity may receive compensation if the celebrity agrees to be part ofthe consumer group. Once the celebrity is included as one of the memberconsumers of the consumer group, other member consumers can receiveannouncements about the transactions of the celebrity, such as thetransactions of the celebrity conducted on a specified account.

Here, the transaction handler (th) 206 may process, within the paymentprocessing system 200, the transactions of an endorser upon an accountof the endorser that is funded by the endorsee (e.g., the merchant (m)104 that has engaged in the endorsement contract with the endorser). Inone implementation, the transaction handler (th) 206 may receive anauthorization request for the transaction of the endorser on theaccount. The authorization request may include a code usable todistinguish the merchant (m) 104 as one of the endorsees. Thetransaction handler (th) 206 may use the code in the authorizationrequest to distinguish the merchant (m) 104 that engaged in thetransaction with the endorser as one of the endorsees. The transactionhandler (th) 206 may send an authorization response, which is responsiveto the authorization request, for delivery to the merchant (m) 104 thatsubmitted the authorization request. Thereafter, the transaction of theendorser may be cleared and settled within the payment processing system200 as is known by those of ordinary skill in the relevant art.

Each of the endorsees of the account of the endorser may submit funds tothe account. They may each transfer a set amount of funds to the accountat a preset schedule, as denoted by the endorsement contract.Alternatively, or in combination, each of the endorees may receive astatement at the end of a preset period indicating an amount of fundsthat each of the endorsees need to forward to the account of theendorser. To illustrate, the endorser purchased $50 US of resources froma first endorsee franchisee store, thus the franchisor must forward $50US plus any applicable fees to the account of the endorser. Thereafter,the first endorsee franchisee store may clear and settle the transactionwith the endorser such that the first endorsee franchisee is forwardedthe $50 US from the account of the endorser.

Alternatively, the transaction of the endorser may not be cleared andsettled such that funds are not transferred to the merchant (m) 104 forthe transaction. For example, if the merchant (1) 104 is one of theendorsees, then the merchant (1) 104 may not wish to transfer funds intothe account only to receive the funds back from the account. Rather, themerchant (1) 104 may simply wish to reconcile the submittedauthorization request. Here, the transaction handler (th) 206 may send,to the endorsee engaged in the transaction with the endorser, datausable to reconcile the transaction with the endorser. For example, thedata may include indicia about: the resource purchased (e.g., a SKU),the value of the resource, or the frequency of transactions of theendorser with the endorsee. In one implementation, the endorsee mayreconcile the received data by comparing the received data with:submitted authorization requests, logs of transaction of the endorsee,or the terms of the endorsement contract.

To illustrate, Tiger Woods, a golf celebrity, may enter a contract toendorse Nike® products, Starwood® resorts, and PF Chang® restaurants(collectively, “the Endorsees”). As part of the endorsement agreement,Tiger Woods becomes one of the member consumers in the consumer groupand is issued an endorsement account within the payment processingsystem 200, wherein the transaction data for the transactions on theendorsement account can be announced to other member consumers. TigerWoods may then engage in transactions upon the endorsement account forthe resources of any of the Endorsees. Each of the Endorsees would fundthe purchase of the corresponding resource of the respective Endorseethat was made by Tiger Woods. In this manner, Tiger Woods would receivethe resources without paying for them and in return, the memberconsumers (e.g., fans of Tiger Woods) would receive announcements aboutpurchases of Tiger Woods. Therefore, if Tiger Woods purchases blue Nike®tennis shoes from a merchant, his fans would receive an announcementindicating the details of purchase of the blue Nike® tennis shoes, andNike Corporation would pay the merchant for the blue Nike® tennis shoes.Moreover, the fans may receive, in the announcement, a coupon for theblue Nike® tennis shoes from those merchants 104 that also sell the blueNike® tennis shoes, or the coupon may be for any product manufactures byNike Corporation. The Endorsees may set limits on the purchases that thecelebrity may make. For example, one of the Endorsees may set a paymentlimit for an amount of funds that the respective endorsee is willing topay for the transaction upon the endorsement account.

Another Exemplary Payment processing System

FIG. 8 illustrates another exemplary payment processing system 800.Payment processing system can be operated in the environment of FIG. 1which an announcement recipient of the implementations disclosed hereincan receive an announcement. The general environment of FIG. 1 includethat of a merchant (m) 810, such as the merchant (m) 104, who canconduct a transaction for goods and/or services with an account user(au) (e.g., consumer (c) 102) on an account issued to an account holder(a) 808 by an issuer (i) 804 (e.g., issuer (i) 202), where the processesof paying and being paid for the transaction are coordinated by atransaction handler 802 (e.g., the transaction handler (th) 206). Thetransaction includes participation from different entities that are eacha component of the payment processing system 800. The payment processingsystem 800 has a plurality of merchants (m) 810 that includes merchant(1) 810 through merchant (M) 810, where M can be up to and greater thanan eight digit integer.

Payment processing system 800 has a plurality of accounts 808 each ofwhich is held by a corresponding account holder (1) 808 through accountholder (A) 808, where A can be up to and greater than a ten eight digitinteger.

Payment processing system 800 includes account user (1) 808 throughaccount user (AU) 808, where AU can be as large as a ten digit integeror larger. Each account user (au) conducts a transaction with merchant(m) 810 for goods and/or services using the account that has been issuedby an issuer (i) 804 to a corresponding account holder (a) 808. Datafrom the transaction on the account is collected by the merchant (m) 810and forwarded to a corresponding acquirer (a) 806 (e.g., the acquirer(q) 204). Acquirer (a) 806 forwards the data to transaction handler 802who facilitates payment for the transaction from the account issued bythe issuer (i) 804 to account holder (a) 808.

Payment processing system 800 has a plurality of issuers (1−i) 804. Eachissuer (i) 804 may be assisted in processing one or more transactions bya corresponding agent issuer (ai) 804, where ‘i’ can be an integer from1 to 1, where ‘ai’ can be an integer from 1 to AI, and where I and Alcan be as large as an eight digit integer or larger.

Payment processing system 800 has a plurality of acquirers (q) 806. Eachacquirer (q) 806 may be assisted in processing one or more transactionsby a corresponding agent acquirer (aq) 806, where ‘q’ can be an integerfrom 1 to Q, where aq can be an integer from 1 to AQ, and where Q and AQcan be as large as a eight digit integer or larger.

The transaction handler 802 may process a plurality of transactionswithin the payment processing system 800. The transaction handler 802can include one or a plurality or networks and switches (ns) 802. Eachnetwork/switch (ns) 802 can be a mainframe computer in a geographiclocation different than each other network/switch (ns) 802, where ‘ns’is an integer from one to NS, and where NS can be as large as a fourdigit integer or larger.

Dedicated communication systems 820, 822 (e.g., private communicationnetwork(s)) facilitate communication between the transaction handler 802and each issuer (i) 804 and each acquirer (a) 806. The Network 812, viae-mail, the World Wide Web, cellular telephony, and/or other optionallypublic and private communications systems, can facilitate communications822 a-822 e among and between each issuer (i) 804, each acquirer (a)806, each merchant (m) 810, each account holder (a) 808, and thetransaction handler 802. Alternatively and optionally, one or morededicated communication systems 824, 826, and 828 can facilitaterespective communications between each acquirer (a) 806 and eachmerchant (m) 810, each merchant (m) and each account holder (a) 808, andeach account holder (a) 808 and each issuer (i) 804, respectively.

Each acquirer (q) 806 may be assisted in processing one or moretransactions by a corresponding agent acquirer (aq) 806, where ‘q’ canbe an integer from 1 to Q, where aq can be an integer from 1 to AQ, andwhere Q and AQ can be as large as a eight digit integer or larger.

Merchant (m) 810 may be a person or entity that sells goods and/orservices. Merchant (m) 810 may also be, for instance, a manufacturer, adistributor, a retailer, a load agent, a drugstore, a grocery store, agas station, a hardware store, a supermarket, a boutique, a restaurant,or a doctor's office. In a business-to-business setting, the accountholder (a) 808 may be a second merchant (m) 810 making a purchase fromanother merchant (m) 810. Merchant (m) 810 may utilize at least onepoint-of-interaction terminal (e.g., Point of Service or browser enabledconsumer cellular telephone) that can communicate with the account user(au) 808, the acquirer (a) 806, the transaction handler 802, or theissuer (i) 804. Thus, the point-of-interaction terminal is in operativecommunication with the payment processing system 800.

Typically, a transaction begins with account user (au) 808 presentingthe portable consumer device to the merchant (m) 810 to initiate anexchange for a good or service. The portable consumer device may beassociated with an account (e.g., a credit account) of account holder(a) 808 that was issued to the account holder (a) 808 by issuer (i) 804.

The portable consumer device may be in a form factor that can be apayment card, a gift card, a smartcard, a smart media, a payroll card, ahealthcare card, a wrist band, a machine readable medium containingaccount information, a keychain device, such as a SPEEDPASS® devicecommercially available from ExxonMobil Corporation, a supermarketdiscount card, a cellular telephone, personal digital assistant, apager, a security card, an access card, a wireless terminal, or atransponder. The portable consumer device may include a volatile ornon-volatile memory to store information such as the account number oran account holder (a) 808's name.

Merchant (m) 810 may use the point-of-interaction terminal to obtainaccount information, such as a number of the account of the accountholder (a) 808, from the portable consumer device. The portable consumerdevice may interface with the point-of-interaction terminal using amechanism including any suitable electrical, magnetic, or opticalinterfacing system such as a contactless system using radio frequency ormagnetic field recognition system or contact system such as a magneticstripe reader. The point-of-interaction terminal sends a transactionauthorization request to the issuer (i) 804 of the account associatedwith the portable consumer device. Alternatively, or in combination, theportable consumer device may communicate with issuer (i) 804,transaction handler 802, or acquirer (a) 806.

Issuer (i) 804 may authorize the transaction and forward same to thetransaction handler 802. Transaction handler 802 may also clear thetransaction. Authorization includes issuer (i) 804, or transactionhandler 802 on behalf of issuer (i) 804, authorizing the transaction inconnection with issuer (i) 804's instructions such as through the use ofbusiness rules. The business rules could include instructions orguidelines from the transaction handler 802, the account holder (a) 808,the merchant (m) 810, the acquirer (a) 806, the issuer (i) 804, arelated financial institution, or combinations thereof. The transactionhandler 802 may maintain a log or history of authorized transactions.Once approved, the merchant (m) 810 may record the authorization,allowing the account user (au) 808 to receive the good or service frommerchant (m) or an agent thereof.

The merchant (m) 810 may, at discrete periods, such as the end of theday, submit a list of authorized transactions to the acquirer (a) 806 orother transaction related data for processing through the paymentprocessing system 800. The transaction handler 802 may compare thesubmitted authorized transaction list with its own log of authorizedtransactions. The transaction handler 802 may route authorizationtransaction amount requests from the corresponding the acquirer (a) 806to the corresponding issuer (i) 804 involved in each transaction. Oncethe acquirer (a) 806 receives the payment of the authorized transactionfrom the issuer (i) 804, the acquirer (a) 806 can forward the payment tothe merchant (m) 810 less any transaction costs, such as fees for theprocessing of the transaction. If the transaction involves a debit orpre-paid card, the acquirer (a) 806 may choose not to wait for theissuer (i) 804 to forward the payment prior to paying merchant (m) 810.

There may be intermittent steps in the foregoing process, some of whichmay occur simultaneously. For example, the acquirer (a) 806 can initiatethe clearing and settling process, which can result in payment to theacquirer (a) 806 for the amount of the transaction. The acquirer (a) 806may request from the transaction handler 802 that the transaction becleared and settled. Clearing includes the exchange of financialinformation between the issuer (i) 804 and the acquirer (a) 806 andsettlement includes the exchange of funds. The transaction handler 802can provide services in connection with settlement of the transaction.The settlement of a transaction includes depositing an amount of thetransaction settlement from a settlement house, such as a settlementbank, which transaction handler 802 typically chooses, into aclearinghouse, such as a clearing bank, that acquirer (a) 806 typicallychooses. The issuer (i) 804 deposits the same from a clearinghouse, suchas a clearing bank, which the issuer (i) 804 typically chooses, into thesettlement house. Thus, a typical transaction involves various entitiesto request, authorize, and fulfill processing the transaction.

The payment processing system 800 will preferably have networkcomponents suitable for scaling the number and data payload size oftransactions that can be authorized, cleared and settled in both realtime and batch processing. These include hardware, software, dataelements, and storage network devices for the same. Examples of paymentprocessing system 800 include those operated, at least in part, by:American Express Travel Related Services Company, Inc; MasterCardInternational, Inc.; Discover Financial Services, Inc.; First DataCorporation; Diners Club International, LTD; Visa Inc.; and agents ofthe foregoing.

Each of the network/switch (ns) 802 can include one or more data centersfor processing transactions, where each transaction can include up to100 kilobytes of data or more. The data corresponding to the transactioncan include information about the types and quantities of goods andservices in the transaction, information about the account holder (a)808, the account user (au) 808, the merchant (m) 810, tax and incentivetreatment(s) of the goods and services, coupons, rebates, rewards,loyalty, discounts, returns, exchanges, cash-back transactions, etc.

By way of example, network/switch (ns) 802 can include one or moremainframe computers (e.g., one or more IBM mainframe computers) for oneor more server farms (e.g., one or more Sun UNIX Super servers), wherethe mainframe computers and server farms can be in diverse geographiclocations.

Each issuer (i) 804 (or agent issuer (ai) 804 thereof) and each acquirer(a) 806 (or agent acquirer (aq) 806 thereof) can use or morerouter/switch (e.g., Cisco™ routers/switches) to communicate with eachnetwork/switch (ns) 802 via dedicated communication systems.

Transaction handler 802 can store information about transactionsprocessed through payment processing system 800 in data warehouses suchas may be incorporated as part of the plurality of networks/switches802. This information can be data mined. The data mining transactionresearch and modeling can be used for advertising, account holder andmerchant loyalty incentives and rewards, fraud detection and prediction,and to develop tools to demonstrate savings and efficiencies madepossible by use of the payment processing system 800 over paying andbeing paid by cash, or other traditional payment mechanisms.

The VisaNet® system is an example component of the transaction handler802 in the payment processing system 800. Presently, the VisaNet® systemis operated in part by Visa Inc. As of 2007, the VisaNet® system Inc.was processing around 300 million transaction daily, on over 1 billionaccounts used in over 170 countries. Financial instructions numberingover 16,000 connected through the VisaNet® system to around 30 millionmerchants (m) 810. In 2007, around 81 billion transactions for about 4trillion U.S. dollars were cleared and settled through the VisaNet®system, some of which involved a communication length of around 24,000miles in around two (2) seconds.

The various steps or acts in a method or process may be performed in theorder shown, or may be performed in another order. Additionally, one ormore process or method steps may be omitted or one or more process ormethod steps may be added to the methods and processes. An additionalstep, block, or action may be added in the beginning, end, orintervening existing elements of the methods and processes. Based on thedisclosure and teachings provided herein, a person of ordinary skill inthe art will appreciate other ways and/or methods for variousimplements. Moreover, it is understood that a functional step ofdescribed methods or processes, and combinations thereof can beimplemented by computer program instructions that, when executed by aprocessor, create means for implementing the functional steps. Theinstructions may be included in computer readable medium that can beloaded onto a general purpose computer, a special purpose computer, orother programmable apparatus.

It is understood that the examples and implementations described hereinare for illustrative purposes only and that various modifications orchanges in light thereof will be suggested to persons skilled in the artand are to be included within the spirit and purview of this applicationand scope of the appended claims.

1. A computer implemented method for auctioning, to a plurality ofauction participants, options to communicate with consumers, thecomputer implemented method comprising the steps of: performing, using acomputing apparatus executing software, an auction, wherein: theplurality of auction participants each bid for the option tocommunicate, after at least one specified condition occurs, with atleast one said consumer; the at least one of the specified conditionincludes presence of the at least one said consumer in a first zone; andat least one said auction participant has a winning bid; and after theat least one specified condition occurs, facilitating, using thecomputing apparatus executing the software, a communication to the atleast one said consumer from the at least one said auction participantthat has the winning bid.
 2. The computer implemented method as definedin claim 1 wherein the step of performing the auction includes:electronically transmitting, using the computing apparatus executing thesoftware, an auction notification to the plurality of auctionparticipants; and receiving, using the computing apparatus executing thesoftware, a corresponding electronic bid from at least one of theauction participants.
 3. The computer implemented method as defined inclaim 1 further comprising the step of determining, using the computingapparatus executing the software, whether the at least one specifiedcondition has occurred including: establishing a location of the atleast one said consumer; and comparing the established location with thefirst zone to find a match.
 4. The computer implemented method asdefined in claim 3, further comprising receiving, using the computingapparatus executing the software, an authorization request for atransaction upon a payment account associated with the at least one saidconsumer, wherein: the authorization request is addressed from a pointof interaction terminal of a corresponding said merchant that isco-located with the at least one said consumer when the authorizationrequest is received; and the establishing of the location of the atleast one said consumer includes, using a code in the authorizationrequest to determine the location.
 5. The computer implemented method asdefined in claim 3 further comprising the step of receiving, using thecomputing apparatus executing the software, an electronic transmissionincluding information usable to establish the location of the at leastone said consumer, wherein the transmission is addressed from at leastone of the following: a portable consumer device of the at least onesaid consumer; a point of interaction terminal that is co-located withthe at least one said consumer; a near field communication terminal thatis co-located with the at least one said consumer; and a far fieldcommunication terminal that is co-located with the at least one saidconsumer.
 6. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 1wherein the step of facilitating the communication includeselectronically transmitting, using the computing apparatus executing thesoftware, an announcement about the at least one said consumer to the atleast one said auction participant with the winning bid.
 7. The computerimplemented method as defined in claim 1 wherein: each said bid has acorresponding monetary offer for the option to communicate with the atleast one said consumer; and the winning bid satisfies a winningcriterion that is selected from the group consisting of: receiving acorresponding said bid within a specified window of time; a highest saidmonetary offer among the corresponding monetary offers of the each saidbid; and a combination of the above winning criteria.
 8. The computerimplemented method as defined in claim 1 further comprising the step ofdetermining, using the computing apparatus executing the software, whenthe at least one specified condition occurs, including: receiving dataaddressed from a portable consumer device co-located with a first saidconsumer; using the received data to: match the first consumer to the atleast one said consumer; and determine a location of the first saidconsumer; and matching the determined location of the first saidconsumer with the first zone.
 9. The computer implemented method asdefined in claim 8 wherein: the first said consumer is associated with apayment account that is issued by a corresponding issuer within apayment processing system; account information associated with theaccount is stored in a database within the payment processing system;the determining when the at least one specified condition occurs furtherincludes using the received data to find a match between thecorresponding said account information with at least one of: a requiredaccount characteristic; a required tendency to purchase a specific typeof resource; and a required demographic, wherein the corresponding saidaccount information includes a corresponding demographic of the firstsaid consumer.
 10. The computer implemented method as defined in claim 1wherein the auction is of a type selected from the group consisting of:English auction; Dutch auction; sealed-bid first-price auction;sealed-bid second-price auction; supply auction; demand auction; doubleauction; open auction; closed auction; buyout auction; raffle; andcombinations of any of the above types of auctions.
 11. The computerimplemented method as defined in claim 1 wherein: there are a pluralityof types of the auction participants; and for each of the plurality oftypes, at least one of the corresponding auction participants is awardedone of the winning bids.
 12. The computer implemented method as definedin claim 1 wherein each of the plurality of auction participants isselected from the group consisting of: a merchant; an acquirer of themerchant; an issuer that has issued an account to the at least oneconsumer; a transaction handler; and any combination thereof, wherein:the transaction handler processes a plurality of transactions eachbetween a corresponding said merchant and a corresponding said consumer;each transaction is upon a corresponding account of a corresponding saidconsumer; each of the merchants submits a corresponding said transactionto a corresponding said acquirer for processing by the transactionhandler who requests a corresponding said issuer to obtain payment forthe corresponding said transaction from a corresponding said account;and the corresponding said issuer forwards the obtained payment to thecorresponding said acquirer to pay the corresponding said merchant forthe corresponding said transaction.
 13. A computer implemented methodfor auctioning an announcement about a consumer to a plurality ofauction participants, the computer implemented method comprising thesteps of: performing, using a computing apparatus executing software, anelectronic auction, wherein: a plurality of auction participants eachelectronically bid on receiving the announcement after at least oneannouncement condition occurs; the at least one announcement conditionincludes presence of the consumer within a spatial zone; and at leastone auction participant has a winning bid; determining, using thecomputing apparatus executing the software, when the at least oneannouncement condition occurs; and after the at least one announcementcondition occurs, forming, using the computing apparatus executing thesoftware, the announcement for electronic delivery to the at least oneauction participant that has the winning bid while the consumer iswithin the spatial zone.
 14. The computer implemented method as definedin claim 13 further comprising the step of transmitting, using thecomputing apparatus executing the software, an auction initiatingcommunication to the plurality of auction participants: after the atleast one announcement condition occurs; and before the step ofperforming the electronic auction.
 15. The computer implemented methodas defined in claim 14 wherein the announcement condition includesreceipt of a transaction of the consumer upon a payment account issuedto the consumer by an issuer within a payment processing system.
 16. Anapparatus comprising a computer readable medium including storedinstructions that, when executed by a computing apparatus, the computingapparatus performs the steps of: specifying conditions for performing anelectronic auction, wherein the specified conditions include presence ofa portable consumer device of a corresponding consumer within a spatialzone; and performing an electronic auction, wherein a plurality ofauction participants electronically bid for an option to communicatewith the portable consumer device within the spatial zone; determiningwhen the announcement conditions occur; and after the announcementconditions occur, enabling a communication with the portable consumerdevice within the spatial zone from at least one of the auctionparticipants having a corresponding winning said bid.
 17. The apparatusas defined in claim 16 wherein the computer readable medium furthercomprises stored instructions that, when executed by the computingapparatus, the computing apparatus performs the step of receiving anauthorization request for a transaction upon a payment account of thecorresponding consumer, wherein: the authorization request is addressedfrom a point of interaction terminal of a corresponding merchant that isco-located with the portable consumer device when the authorizationrequest is received; and the determining when the announcementconditions occur includes: using a code in the authorization request todetermine a location of the portable consumer device; and comparing thedetermined location to the spatial zone to find a match.
 18. Theapparatus as defined in claim 16 wherein the portable consumer device isselected from the group consisting of: a financial card; a contactlessdevice including a wireless processor, a transmitter, and a receiver; asmart card; a cellular telephone; a personal digital assistant; adigital audio player; a global positioning system enabled device; acomputer; and a combination of any of the above portable consumerdevices.
 19. The apparatus as defined in claim 16 wherein: the step ofdetermining when the announcement conditions occur includes: receiving alocation data, transmitted from the portable consumer device, usable toidentify a location of the portable consumer device; using the receivedlocation data to determine the location of the portable consumer device;and comparing the determined said location of the portable consumerdevice with the spatial zone to find a match.
 20. The apparatus asdefined in claim 19 wherein the location data includes at least one of:a merchant identification code associated with a merchant having a knownlocation; an altitude of the portable consumer device; a latitude of theportable consumer device; a longitude of the portable consumer device; aWorld Geodetic System coordinates of the portable consumer device; datausable to determine a direction of movement of the portable consumerdevice; and data usable to determine a speed of the portable consumerdevice.